The Lord declared in His word to us that if we will listen to obey His voice:
“So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.”
Exodus 23:25-26 NKJV
It always pays to walk in obedience to the voice of the living God. Sometimes it may seem as if it is not the right action to be taking. And that’s exactly what your feelings will want you to believe.
But being willing to obey the voice of the Lord will always cause you to eat of the good of the land (Isaiah 1:19). People who are unwilling to obey the Lord have placed themselves, under the curse that comes with disobedience to Him.
Whereas the reality of it all is that one can only walk and act in obedience to the Lord by faith, and not by our feelings or sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). Our acts of obedience requires that we must have faith in Him at all times and for all things.
Without faith it’s impossible to obey God’s voice, just as it’s absolutely impossible for us to please Him in anything without our faith (Hebrews 11:6). You must believe that He is diligently seeking to satisfy your quest and thirst for His presence. He rewards our walks of faith in obedience to His voice, by positioning us to eat of the good things of this world as we are obeying Him. Yes, there are rewards for every acts of our obedience to the Lord.
The scripture texts above highlights some of the benefits that comes to us as we trust in Him. Sicknesses and diseases will be a thing that won’t ever be mentioned with regards to us again. You will instead of having them, be experiencing abundant fruitfulness and prosperity.
As those very words do suggests the extent to which we are walking in obedience to the Lord, determines the length of our days on the earth. God’s word is His voice to us.
We can’t be walking in disobedience to His word and expect to be living in divine health. Our acts of obedience to His voice goes hand in hand with His promises of divine health and prosperity.
The Lord will bless your bread and water
God will bless what we are eating for as long as, we are walking in obedience to His word. Your bread and water will experience supernatural increase. Yes, you do need bread and water to live on this earth; but you also do need His word to be able to prolong the number of your days.
The enemy of your faith will do everything possible to prevent you from obeying the Lord. The devil wants to defile your bread and water, so as to make you sick as you are eating them. Anything that is defiled should not be passing through our hands or mouths. This is because our hands and our mouths are parts of our physical bodies, which is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
As long as our obedience is complete before the Lord, we will experience no losses or deficiencies in anything, that our physical bodies do need to prosper. We will have no losses in our physical, material and financial investments also, as long as we are obeying the Lord. And besides all of these we will begin to experience a lengthening of our days on the earth, in divine health and prosperity.
These are some of the benefits that follows our acts of obedience to the Lord. God’s word gives us a long life that is worth living. Obedience to God’s word brings us long life without sicknesses and diseases.
When we are living in this manner we will begin to understand the essence of our lives on the earth, better than when we first believed. His written word to us gives the security and protection from the dangers of eating and drinking, the bread and water which the enemy is daily seeking to defile.
Your bread and water will be free from any defilement, for as long as you are obeying His word. If God’s word itself does not bless your bread and water, long life will elude you. That’s why some people are experiencing sicknesses and diseases, instead of good health and prosperity.
It’s important that our daily meditations in God’s word be going on side by side with the feeding of the stomach. You need God’s word to live long life on the earth, just as much as you do need a healthy balanced diet also, for your body to be healed and healthy.
One day we will all eventually die physically and depart from the body. From that moment onwards we won’t have to worry about physical foods anymore. We will have an eternity that’s ruled and sustained by the word of God alone.
That’s why it’s important to be feeding your spirit man with God’s word. It’s the only thing that you will need for eternity with God.
By feeding your spirit man daily with God’s word, you are preparing yourself for eternity with God. You don’t need to wait for eternity to come before preparing for it. You can begin to prepare for it right now.
A lot of people do like to take the curves with regards to their diets. They are feeding their physical bodies daily with healthy food diets, while ignoring the very word of God which sanctifies their bread and water.
You may be consistent in eating healthy diets; but you also do need God’s word to sanctify it. If the bread and water inside your stomach is not being sanctified by the word of God, it will cause defilement to the body.
Many people have fallen sick because they are eating healthy diets in an unworthy manner, which defiles God’s Temple – their physical bodies.
The devil will make sure that you are persistent in eating healthy foods, for as long as you are not using God’s word to sanctify your diets. He causes defilement to the body in this manner to make people sick.
Some people will eat healthy foods and diets for sometimes, but because of the absence of God’s word in their lives, to bless what they are eating and drinking; they will often go back to their unhealthy eating habits.
This open door for the devil with the absence of God’s word in their lives, brings defilement to their physical bodies. They therefore will fall behind in maintaining a healthy lifestyle habit. These are the people who will often be cutting the curves with their diets and health. And as a result of this they are suffering in sicknesses and diseases.
Now just because a particular food item is labeled as being a good diet, or as having a zero tolerance for unhealthy ingredients, does not necessarily means that it’s okay for the body. One doesn’t need the Lord to tell him or her to stop eating or drinking such an item. Common sense is always there for us to ignore it.
But there are people who will disregard godly wisdom in their lives, so as to follow the intense desire of their flesh. They will eat and drink what they do know is poisonous to their physical bodies. Why eat something that you do know is harmful to your body?
These people do know within themselves that they are going to do, what they want to do. They have made up their minds to be eating the unhealthy food item. They keep on deceiving themselves by saying that, eating it once or twice won’t do them any harm. But unfortunately for them the devil will make sure, that they keep eating the unhealthy item, until their health begins to deteriorate.
So why are they asking God to help them in prayer, when they have already made up their minds about eating the unhealthy food items? They have chosen to follow their own intense fleshy desire, to sin against their own physical bodies, instead of doing the right thing with godly wisdom.
It’s exactly like deliberately eating what you do know is toxic and poisonous to your body, and afterwards you are praying for God to deliver you from it. In the real sense of it you do know that, you will go back to eating the same toxic foods again. The devil is not to blame for this. You are the author of your own predicaments in life.
Kosher diets are good for you too
When the Lord in the Old Testament gave a list of forbidden and permitted animals to the Israelites in the wilderness, it was meant to prevent them from being mass minded about the food, that had defiled the people of the world around them.
Their neighbors were eating the forbidden animals which had brought the curse on them. The ungodly people around them were hated by the Lord with a passion, because of their unclean or unhealthy eating habits (Deuteronomy 9:5).
The Israelites were therefore commanded by the Lord never to touch these animals, or even put their meats in their mouths as food. The Lord never wanted His own people to be eating and living like the people around them. So He gave them a list to help them out in choosing their own diets.
This points directly to us as Christians today about how God sees the food that we are eating daily. For this very reason the Lord has commanded us as Christians:
“Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?”
II Corinthians 6:14 NKJV
In the same manner as the Jewish people were commanded not to eat the forbidden animals, we have been commanded also not to be equally yoked with the unbelievers concerning our diets as Christians.
We are the people of God. As God’s special people on the earth our body is meant for His glory alone (1 Peter 2:9).
But for many people today who are struggling with one type of ailment or another, they do know the types of food that are making them sick. Instead they have chosen to be equally yoked with the unbelievers, when it comes to their food choices. And because they are equally yoked with the world concerning food, their body has been defiled by the devil.
It’s even so bad for certain Christians today as they just won’t break away from their bad eating and drinking habits. They won’t be separated from the world around them concerning their choices of foods, drinks and whatever they are breathing. They do know what to break away from so as to be healed and healthy, but they won’t do the right thing.
The devil has smeared and hardened their hearts. He is preventing them from doing what is right to be healed and healthy in the body.
The Israelites are God’s own special people. A nation of priests to the Lord. They have learnt by experience that anytime they are disobeying God, they will have to suffer for it. Sicknesses and diseases comes as a result of disobedience to God.
There are many who are sick today because of their acts of disobedience to God. The Lord never puts sicknesses and diseases on anyone. When people choose to violate God’s standard for living, the devil will exploit such violations by afflicting them with sicknesses and diseases.
It’s the devil who sees their acts of disobedience as the opportunity for him, to afflict their physical bodies with sicknesses and diseases. If you open the door a little bit for the devil by taking those little curves with unhealthy foods, he will definitely open it wider for you; so that you can freely be living with the false delusion that, this type of lifestyle in disobedience to the Lord is okay.
There is no way the children of Israel would had been able to hear God and live according to His will, if they had been violating this ordinance of forbidden and permitted animals. They knew it very well.
For us in the New Testament today we do know that food doesn’t make us holier or nearer to God. However our body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
We therefore do have a Christian duty to take care of it. It’s not God’s responsibility to care for your body. It’s your Christian duty to take care of His Holy Temple – your physical body (2 Corinthians 6:16-17). God lives in your body. Take very good care of it by eating right and healthy.
These forbidden and permitted animals to the Israelites are listed in Leviticus chapter eleven. Israel is a nation of priests (Exodus 19:6) to the Lord. It is the only nation on the earth that God has called His own people, for the purpose of worshiping Him.
They were called and chosen out of all the nations on the earth, as priests unto the Lord. Their lifestyle as the people of God is completely devoted and consecrated to the Lord alone. And up till today there are many Jewish people who are still holding on to this doctrine of the Lord, concerning the forbidden and permitted animals.
They don’t eat or touch certain animals, because they are regarded as being unclean before the Lord. They don’t eat a lot of the foods that the whole world is eating, because they do see themselves as God’s special and chosen people. And in reality they are the people of God Almighty.
And since these forbidden animals are unclean by God’s standard, they are regarded as being unhealthy for the Jewish people. Eating such animals will bring the curse upon anyone of them.
In the same manner if something is unhealthy for our physical bodies as Christians, it is therefore unclean. We don’t need to be equally yoked with the unbelievers around us, just because we don’t want to look awkward in their presence. If you can’t stand up for what you do believe about your diets as a Christian, you won’t be able to stand up for anything at all for the Lord. Conversations around your choice of diets is a great door of opportunity, to witness about Jesus to the world.
We as Christians need to take a lesson from the Israelites, and be separated from unhealthy or unclean foods; instead of looking for ways to take the corners with the unhealthy foods around us. A real Jew will never do such a thing.
Unfortunately many have become so programmed with the world’s way of doing things, to the extent that they are copying the ungodly, by taking the curves and indulging in those unhealthy or unclean food items.
They continue to do this until their health becomes so deteriorated to the extent; that their level of faith is not strong enough, to even carry them to the point of being healed. Their desires for the unhealthy delicacies of the world has stiffened their faith in God’s word and promises to heal them.
You can live a healthy long life
We saw the typical Jewish reaction to unhealthy foods in the reaction of Peter to the vision of unclean animals, which he had received from the Lord. Peter had to confront the Lord with His own standard from His own word about the unclean animals.
How many Christians do often bother to check with their inner witness, about the foods that the devil tempts them with on a daily basis?
A lot of people are sick today because they have been eating, drinking or breathing, what they have seen others eating, drinking and breathing. Peter was not like that. He had said to the Lord:
“ .. Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” And a voice spoke to him again the second time, “What God has cleansed you must not call common.” This was done three times. And the object was taken up into heaven again.”
Acts 10:14-16 NKJV
Three times the voice of the Lord came to Peter never to call whatever the Lord had cleansed as being unclean anymore.
Peter was a stickler for God’s word. The door for the gospel of Jesus Christ to go to the end of the earth was opened, as Peter obeyed the voice of the Lord to get Cornelius (the Roman Centurion) and his household, saved and filled with the Holy Spirit through this vision.
What about you? Are you a stickler for the will of God concerning unhealthy or unclean foods?
Figuratively the Lord used the vision of the unclean animals to lead Peter into His perfect will. And the Lord is still doing the same thing today. However our visions today must always be guided by the written word of God. The Holy Spirit has been given to direct and guide us, into knowing what is healthy or unhealthy as food for us.
When we are being led from the inside of us to decide about the food that we are eating daily, we will always have the inner witness telling us not to eat certain things. The same inner witness will lead us into abstinence from certain food items. And if we are walking in obedience to the inner witness, our lives will be wonderfully blessed and fruitful.
The Bible informed us also about Daniel and his other three Jewish colleagues in the Babylonian palace. They had been chosen to be groomed in the palace so as to be advising the King of Babylon. Part of the grooming process involved the consumption of the Babylonian delicacies, which were forbidden by the Lord for the Jewish people.
Daniel refused to be defiled by eating the Babylonian foods. The Bible says:
“But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now God had brought Daniel into the favor and goodwill of the chief of the eunuchs. And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, “I fear my Lord the king, who has appointed your food and drink. For why should he see your faces looking worse than the young men who are your age? Then you would endanger my head before the king.””
Daniel 1:8-10 NKJV
Daniel however persisted. He proposed that they should be tested by eating vegetables only for ten days; and after that the eunuch should compare their appearances with that of the others:
“Then let our appearance be examined before you, and the appearance of the young men who eat the portion of the king’s delicacies; and as you see fit, so deal with your servants.” So he consented with them in this matter, and tested them ten days. And at the end of ten days their features appeared better and fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king’s delicacies. Thus the steward took away their portion of delicacies and the wine that they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.”
Daniel 1:13-16 NKJV
Daniel and his friends were supernaturally protected from the wrath of the palace by the Lord, as they stood to live up to God’s standard concerning their diets.
When we are standing up for the Lord and the integrity of His word, He will always protect us. The moment a child of God begins to take the curves, so as to please the desires of his or her flesh, then that child of God is compromising his or her health.
Start living a self crucified life
That’s why a lifestyle of self crucifixion to the desires of the flesh is important for the body. Your spirit, soul and body are healthy and sound for as long as you are learning to yield to the Spirit Who lives in you. The Apostle Paul said:
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Galatians 2:20 NKJV
Self crucifixion as a lifestyle can save us from the temptations with the delicacies of this world. Are you daily crucifying your body by fleeing away from unhealthy food items? Or are you the Christian who is taking the curves at every opportunity that the devil brings across your pathway?
You can live a lifestyle of self crucifixion by deliberately denying yourself access to those unhealthy food items. You must be persistent with this without taking the curves with those delicacies.
You will experience so much freedom from them as you do this. And by taking this step you will stop the unhealthy food items, from becoming a hindrance to your spiritual walk with the Lord. Food can hinder your spiritual growth. Too much eating and drinking is sinful. Gluttony and overeating are serious sins that God hates. You don’t need to be in bondage to those food items, when you can indeed be free from them.
Taking the curves with unhealthy or unclean foods will not only cost you a lot of money in healthcare bills. The money that you ought to be using to get souls saved for the Lord, are being redirected by the devil somewhere else.
Those who are taking the corners with unhealthy eating habits are saying that, they do hate the commandments of the Lord with such actions. They will often do everything possible to avoid being obedient to His word. That’s why they are suffering for their own disobedience with sicknesses and diseases.
But it’s a different thing for those who are walking in obedience to His word, even in difficult circumstances. They will experience the blessing of the Lord.
Now the Bible says that:
“Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
I Corinthians 10:31 NKJV
Next time you are being tempted to eat, drink or breathe what is unhealthy to your body, meditate on 1 Corinthians 10:31. Then try and say to the Lord that you are indeed eating, drinking or breathing such things to the glory of God.
As you say such a prayer check within yourself to see, if your action is really bringing glory to God. You will discover that you can truly change your habits. You can stop cutting those corners and put yourself on the road to be healed and live healthy for the rest of your life. Start doing it today. You are healed and healthy in Jesus name.
