Text: Deuteronomy 23:12-14
Memory text:
“A man who wanders from the way of understanding Will rest in the assembly of the dead.”
Proverbs 21:16 NKJV
God, in His sovereignty, may show mercy when we break the natural laws to heal us (Phil 2:25-27). However, we can’t continue to break the natural laws of God and then pray and fast to counter the effects of our actions.
Medical professionals estimate that 60% of illnesses result from unhealthy lifestyles. Though God introduced Himself as Jehovah Rapha, that is, “The LORD who heals you”, yet He also gave practical health regulations as part of the Old Testament laws to keep us healthy. Biblical health laws reveal the way to avoid illness and disease to prevent contagious diseases and widespread epidemics. We suffer the consequences when we ignore them.
For example, during the 14th century, bubonic plague struck Asia and spread to Russia, Persia, Turkey, North Africa, and Europe. About one-third of the European population died in those tragic years. At that time, a Jewish physician, Balavignus, having seen that miserable sanitation was a major factor in the spread of the disease, instituted a cleanup movement among the Jews. Thus, the Jews’ mortality rate from the plague was only five percent of what it was among their non-Jewish neighbours!
The Black Death was finally conquered by isolating the sick and quarantining them. These practices of sanitation, isolating, and quarantining the sick, upon which modern hygiene rests were biblical hygiene laws for infectious disease prevention and spread (Deu 23:12-13; Lev 14:8-9).
There were also biblical laws of healthy eating. For example, animal fats were forbidden as food (Lev 7:23). Today, animal fat is known to be high in cholesterol and that there is a correlation between heart disease and cholesterol.
In the New Testament, Paul told the men in the ship to eat, “.. for your health” (Acts 27:34 KJV); and Timothy to drink non-alcoholic wine instead of bad water, for his stomach health and to exercise his body (1Tim 4:8; 5:23).
Friends, God won’t honour your prayer and fasting if you continue to break His natural laws. Rather, cooperate with the laws by keeping a hygienic environment and lifestyle, eating healthy foods, resting, exercising, and keeping your body from toxic substances like alcohol, addictive drugs, cigarettes and so forth.
Prayer points
1. Father, give me understanding to know the natural laws that I have been violating and causing my troubles in Jesus’ name.
2. Father, let me never act foolishly nor wander away from understanding in Jesus’ name.
Today’s declarations
1. My prayer and fasting become effective when I cooperate with the natural laws of God.
2. Prayer and fasting are not remedies for an unhygienic lifestyle, eating junks, not resting, and breaking God’s natural laws.
Contact: pastor@thf.org.ng