Healing by The Renewing of The Mind and the Flow of God's Life Within Us

In general sickness comes from sin. It first entered into mankind through the fall (Genesis 3:1-7). This was the injection of Satan himself with all the satanic element into Adam and Eve. They were in effect corrupted. This corruption had an issue which was death. Firstly, the injection of sin caused man to be separated from God, secondly the injection of sin caused man to die. Sin is insidious; it corrupts our soul, and through our flesh kills us.

Aside from the sickness that comes from sin, and the death produced from the sin element within us, our bodies from time to time become worn down. There is much to be said about spiritual warfare and our bodies, especially our minds. The enemy uses darts as thoughts to distract our mind from being set on the spirit and following God in a full way. Our mind needs to be constantly under the control of the spirit and in subjection to God. It should in a sense be buffeted by ourselves and at the least be under the subjection of our will connected to the spirit at all times, including in our sleep. Through our will, we may direct our mind to be set upon the spirit. This is accomplished through prayer, Bible reading, and fellowship with God and other brothers and sisters. We should not do this "in ourselves." But we should get out of our self, our mind, emotion, and will, and get into our spirit through these means. This is something basic and yet all-important for living a normal Christian life. It is elementary yet advanced. There is no graduating from this level. A believer whose mind is not subject to his spirit will at the least live a very poor life before God, and at the worst be usurped by the evil one and fall victim to sin and evil. The mind is the battleground for it is the leading part of our soul. Some are more emotional, and others are reason more. But in general, we follow our own mind, our own will. We do what we want to do. But a Christian should do God's will and follow God by exercising his spirit to contact God and become saturated with God.
With the mind, we should have an understanding of certain spiritual principles.  Firstly we should understand how the mind is a great spiritual war zone that is a constant goal for both God and Satan. Within the mind there is a constant battle. From the time you were born again your mind has been under attack. Because of this, we should always set our mind upon the spirit (Romans 8:1-2). When we do this we have life and peace and God can grow within us. When He grows in us, He spreads to all of our parts, even to our bodies.

We have to see how our minds can become useful to either God or the enemy. We have to see that we should set our mind upon the spirit, otherwise it is either in one of the parts of the soul, or it is in the flesh. Either way, we have death.
For this we need exercise and practice. Everyone who is a professional athlete is good at these two areas-exercise and practice. It is nearly impossible to become a great athlete without exercise and practice. Talent is one thing, exercise and practice are another. One could have a wonderful talent, but if he or she does not exercise that talent and practice at developing and honing it, then that talent is somewhat wasted. With regards to our spirit, it should be exercised. As Christians, our talent lies in our spirit. For this we need to take control of our minds, through our will, to exercise to live Christ and live within our spirit. We must not be distracted from this.
The young people are a wonderful example of how easily our minds can be distracted from following God. If we take some time out to "people watch" and observe the young people we can easily see how our minds can be used against us in our spiritual walk. The young people may one second be in the meeting hall enjoying God with fellow brother and sisters and the next second be in France talking about the Eiffel tower in their mind. This is just an example, it is not to talk down on the young people, for in fact this is all of our experience. Oh how easily our minds can be distracted from the spirit! Often we travel in our mind, thinking from one thought to the next. Through the fall our minds were utterly corrupted with the satanic element. This caused the mind to be connected to the flesh with it's sin. When our mind is set on the flesh it is very literally connected to sin. But we are so used to living here! This is where we are from our birth. To exercise the spirit is actually a foreign thing to us. But it is all important. Since the mind is in the middle between the flesh and our spirit, this makes it a beachhead and a battleground for spiritual warfare. If the mind is not set on the spirit, it can easily become usurped and even be used by the enemy to damage or even to kill us. When our mind is set on the flesh, or flaccid within our soul, any kind of evil can be worked out within us if we are not careful and watchful over ourselves.  This is why we constantly need to set our mind upon the spirit in the spirit's enjoyment and stay in God's life. In the spirit Satan cannot touch us. In God's life we are safe.
Through the spirit, our bodies are also in a process of being renewed through the metabolic process of transformation. This eventually brings healing to our bodies. God is a healer. Many instances within the Bible record God healing people of their sicknesses. We should see that sickness is related to sin. Many of the instances of healing recorded in the Bible are records of God healing people through forgiveness of their sins. "Go, and sin no more." (John 8:1-11) "Child, your sins have been forgiven." (John 7:36-48) "Your faith has healed you." (Mark 10:46-52). These are all instances of when Christ healed people through forgiveness. As we are forgiven, we are healed. Sometimes forgiveness is an ongoing thing. As we deal with sins, we are forgiven. Some struggle with sin, so their healing takes longer. As they struggle they become more sick, but as they are forgiven, and eventually overcome the sin, they are healed more and more. Sometimes this is how God works. Some cases are harder than others.

HOW TO STAY A HEALTHY CHRISTIAN TO SERVE GOD

HOW TO STAY HEALTHY

A recent illness prompted me to write about what one should do if they get sick. The traditional route would be to see a doctor. I don't want to dissuade anyone from this route. However if you are like many of the millions of Americans that do not have health insurance or when you did go to see a doctor all he/she did was push some pills your way then you need to pay attention to what follows. There are most definitely some actions you can take to prevent illness, and to ward off a cold or the flu in the event that you do become sick. If you are like me, and you view health from a holistic standpoint then you will want to shy away from traditional doctors and find a more natural route. It is my opinion (formulated from learning and experience) that doctors, especially in this country, are trumped up drug dealers. Now, many drugs save lives. I am on a drug called Coumadin (Warfarin). It helps with my blood clotting that I received as a gift from genetics. I almost died two years ago when a clot traveled from my right ankle up through my heart and settled in my lung. If it had gone into my brain I would be dead. The Coumadin is keeping me alive more or less. I recently found out that it is basically rat poison (Google it, or Wikipedia). In lower doses it's used to kill rats. So I'm essentially taking poison to keep me alive and un-clotted. Bad with the good right? Well, my aim is to get off this drug and onto a better anti-coagulant. But Coumadin is dirt cheap, and I still am without insurance. So it may be close to a year before I get anything better than my rat poison. But I digress.

I am preaching prevention. You need to eat right, exercise, stay away from drugs and alcohol, and take care of your teeth. If you do this your body will reward you with a long life and fruitfulness. You may say "well I'm young now and we only live once." Exactly, you only live once. Why ruin your later years by hurting your body now? D not jeopardize your later years by going crazy in your younger years. Especially with regards to your body. Which is for Christ and the church.  1 Corinthians 6:18-20 says "Flee fornication. Every sin which a man may do is outside of the body, but he who commits fornication sins against his own body. Or do you not know that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought with a price. So then glorify God in your body." I believe this verse and Paul's thought relate to how we take care of our body, not just abstaining from fornication.
The body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. It is where our soul and our human spirit are contained. The soul, composed of the mind, emotion, and the will is what we use to contact God in our human spirit. So if we damage our body, or it is weakened through illness brouth on from poor diet and or habit, then we are in turn damaging the faculties used to get to the spirit. As we know, the spirit is the goal, from which we commune and fellowship with God. If we damage our body, then we are damaging our worship area. We use our mind, emotion, and our will for expressing God and serving Him. If they are damaged then our worship of the Lord and our pursuit of Him may be jeopardized, causing us to be of less use to God and His purpose could be set back somewhat.  There is always this potential.

So it's important to build up good bodily habits from a young age (Proverbs 22:6), because this is what will keep you in your later years. If we damage our bodies now, we might have to go through many years of trying to bring our bodies back into a healthy state. It is said in science that it takes six years for your body to completely regenerate it's cells from the inside out. You body makes new cells and in six years it will be re-celled so to speak. But why not give it the proper fuel and nutrients it needs to thrive? This would go better for us in the future as we need all our bearings to fight the Christian battle and be good stewards of the grace of God (1 Peter 4:19).

Prevention is the best way to stay healthy and keep from getting sick. You don't have to have a degree in Nutrition or Natural Medicine to understand the basics of eating healthy and staying within the normal range of homeostasis and bodily pH levels. But you do need to do a little research on the subject- and its absolutely worth it! Your body health is one of your greatest assets in life, because it is the container of the Holy Spirit.

PREVENTION

Prevention on its basic level starts with what you eat and drink. What we ingest into our bodies is one of the most important things we need to control in our personal lives. The same can be said for what we inject into our mind and how we think, and feel in our spirits and souls. We need to wake up each morning and eat Jesus, drink a fair amount of water, juice, and milk, and eat a healthy breakfast consisting of fruits, lean-lowfat proteins and some grains such as organic whole wheat bread. Thoughts are important just like food and water is important. We should set our minds on the spirit (Romans 8:6) and watch our thoughts and our speech throughout the day (Matthew 15:19-20a, Ephesians 4:29).

Preventing sickness starts with eating right, but what if you can't always eat right or you often get sick for no reason? Well eating right and getting sick go hand in hand. If you eat bad, there's a good chance you will get sick more often and your body will not look and function very well. So my #1 piece of advice to anyone, sick or not, would be to change your diet and start an exercise routine. Bodily exercise is profitable for a little to Christians (1 Timothy 4:8a). We should at the least walk a few miles a day in addition to cleaning and household chores. Some of the stronger ones could do gymnastics or running and a minimal amount of lifting weights. There is no set law on this, but only a warning that too much exercise could lead to building up lust. We want to rule our bodies, not let our bodies rule us. For some this is a hard learned lesson, for others it isn't so difficult.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU GET SICK?

When you are sick its important to understand what your body is going through. It is fighting off a pathogen in your bloodstream that is attacking your red blood cells. The best way to fight this off is to raise your immune system. The best way to do this is to drink a lot of liquid to flush out negative toxins built up in your gut and to pour down your stomach lots of fresh fruit full of vitamin C. Vitamin C is the #1 healer out of vitamin family. It is a superhero. It raises your immune system dramatically and within hours you could be feeling better and on your way to getting over your sickness. 

You can get vitamin C in Oranges particularly and many other fruits and berries. A good multivitamin is also very important for everyday use, and when you are sick you need more vitamins and immune system fighters to help you get over your sickness.  So it helps to take more vitamins when you get sick than when you feel normal.Please take a daily vitamin and mineral supplement. If you live in a higher region on the globe, you will need to take a fish oil supplement as well for it's added vitamin D which helps regulate sleep and energy cycles. This is because those in the higher regions of the world do not get as much sunlight as do those who live closer to the equator. 

Please eat when you get sick. Even if you can't keep the food down, it's better to sip a healthy chicken broth or various other liquids. Your body needs the nutrients to fight off the pathogen.