Faith and Strength

To start, we need to define two key terms: faith and health. This book is an exploration of the connection of those two terms. What does it mean to be healthy and live by faith? How much does one influence the other, and if so, how do we live out a healthy faith? 

Faith is the confidence in what we hope for and the assurance of what we do not see. It is the act of believing God and making decisions based on how God views the world and not what we hear or see in culture.

Think about faith as the connector between us and God. The stronger our faith, the stronger that connection is between us and God and the more it allows us to endure. We begin our journey with God with a step of faith. We develop spiritually as we apply the teaching of Jesus to our lives by faith. When we begin to believe what God says is true more than what we hear or see in our culture, our faith grows like a muscle and allows us to trust Him more and more.

Muscles only grow when they work against some form of tension. Likewise, faith has to work against a certain degree of doubt or disbelief in order to develop and deepen. Just like with our muscles, the more we train our faith the deeper it can permeate into our lives and influence how we live. We are less swayed by momentary difficulties as our faith goes deeper than our circumstances and anchors us into what we believe.

I like to define health as the ability of a thing or a person to function as intended. This applies to every area of our lives. Healthy relationships are marked by trust, mutual love, and the encouragement for each person to be valued and flourish. Mental health is the ability to make wise decisions, control and manage your thoughts and live in reality connected to other people. Physical health is when our bodies are not a limiting factor buarenstead able to do all they were meant to do from a position of strength. Sickness, injury, and even death were not part of God’s plan and are all examples of our bodies breaking down and limiting what we can do. 

Jesus is the example of health and for living by faith. He was perfect in every area; always loving God with his whole heart, mind, body and soul, and always loving his neighbor perfectly. 

Our health can be measured in terms of how closely we are aligned with Jesus. I don’t mean to reduce Jesus in anyway when I say that he is the healthiest person to walk the face of the Earth. Jesus’s life was 100% in agreement with the vision, values, and expression of the Kingdom of God. Jesus himself said that He did nothing of his own ambition but sought to obey the will of His Father in every area, at every moment as much as possible. 

This is what it means to be healthy as a follower of Jesus. Every area of our lives is in submission to the will of God and all that we do is motivated by a desire to love God with all we have and love our neighbor as ourselves. 

Allow me the chance to apply this approach to our physical health to help us get a better idea. When we look back at the moment of creation, Adam and Eve were created with perfect bodies in perfect health. This does not mean that Adam had a six-pack or that Eve looked like a swimsuit model. That is a shallow and cosmetic view of health that is more concerned with appearance than function.

Adam was physically able to do all that God asked him to do. He could work in the garden and help it flourish. He was able to care for his wife, provide for her, and meet all her needs. His body in no way limited his ability to be obedient to God. He may have grown tired from his work but I don’t think he was getting sick or dealing with any chronic illnesses.

When we look at the life of Jesus we get a similar picture of physical health. Jesus was able to develop the strength necessary to work with Joseph as a carpenter before beginning his ministry. He walked from town to town as he taught and preached. He rested well with his disciples and knew the limitations of his body, withdrawing from time to time to recharge and prepare for what was coming down the road. 

For each area, the more aligned we are with Jesus, the healthier we will be. This means taking every thought captive to the truth of God for our mental health. Living with health boundaries in our relationships and managing our emotions rather than letting them control us. 

The purpose of the Gospels is to teach us about Jesus in order that we may put our faith in Him. It is not a scientific textbook meant to teach us about healthy living. However, when we read about the life of Jesus and how he cared for himself and those around him, he perfectly embodies what it means to be healthy in every area. The degree to which we are able to live like Jesus is the degree to which we will be healthy. 

Our ability to live well spiritually and follow Jesus is dependent on the strength of our faith. In this sense our faith works like a muscle that allows us to exercise what we believe. 

For a long time I thought of faith as something we possessed or as a belief. I equated faith with belief. The sum total of our beliefs was what compromised our faith. Some of this was my own interpretation and some of it was due to the way in which the churches I attended talked about faith. Evangelism was described as sharing your faith which was essentially what you believe about Jesus. In this setting faith was a list of facts about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Sharing these facts was equivalent to sharing your faith. 

The Bible though speaks differently about faith. It’s not a noun but a verb in many places. There is action involved with faith. As we follow Jesus and live by faith, we learn about God and interact with Him. His truth displaces lies that we learned in our communities, culture or interactions with the world. We apply that truth by faith, trusting that what God says is better and truer than what we previously thought. 

The writer of Hebrews tells us that faith is a requirement to please God. This is because living out our faith is a very real declaration that God has the authority and wisdom to declare what is best for us and we are choosing to believe Him over what we see and hear. With this in mind, strengthening our faith pulls us closer to the center of that circle where our lives overlap with that of Jesus.