Christian Healthy Lifestyle 

David Sandstrom 0:00
So here's an important statement. Are you ready for it? Drumroll please. It's my contention that God wants us healthy. There. I said, when I say that to some of my Christian friends, I sometimes see some raised eyebrows. And they say, Dave, are you? Are you advocating some type of prosperity gospel or some type of name and claim it theology? No, not at all. And I'm going to have more to say on this later in the episode, but I'm advocating the exact opposite of naming and claim it. And I encourage you again to hang in there to the end of the episode, because I'm going to be touching on that some more a little bit later on down the road. The Bible has a lot to say, on God's desire for health and well being. I'm going to be sharing a lot of verses here. But let's for now, let's just consider this 3d John, one, two, beloved, I pray that in all respects, you may prosper and be in good health. So God wants us healthy. I'm going to have a lot more verses on that later. Welcome to the Natural Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential, so that you can look and feel your best at any age. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, naturopathic doctor, and biblical health coach, and this is episode number 120.

David Sandstrom 1:13
Hello Natural Nation, David Sandstrom here, well, this episode is going to be a little bit different. I've had a lot of guests on over the last year or so. And this is going to be a solo episode. And the guests that I've had on, they've been great. And I really appreciate their contribution to the show. But I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to unpack the mission statement of this show, because no one understands the mission statement of this podcast better than I do. And I thought I just wanted to be take this opportunity to be completely unambiguous about what I'm trying to accomplish with this show. So if you're a regular listener to the show, you know, that here at Natural Health Matters, I want to help you maximize your health potential, so that you can look and feel your best at any age. So that begs the question, how do we maximize our health potential? Well, I believe we maximize our health potential by aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind and body. So God is our designer. And as such, he has preferences as to how we treat each part of who and what we are. And I want to be clear on what those are, and help you move in that direction. So if you bought a new car, and you wanted to know what the intervals were for preventative maintenance, like oil changes, transmission fluid and those kinds of things, you would consult the owner's manual because no one knows better than the manufacturer, to give us direction, those kinds of things. Well, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ, and my God is the God of the Bible. And I believe that the Bible is our owner's manual for living. It's God's revelation of Himself to the human race. And second Timothy 3:16, says, All Scripture is inspired by God, and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training and righteousness. So I would say that I would suggest that we do well to consult God's owner's manual for living. That's the Bible. God's designed for us is a holistic one. Human beings are a spirit, we have a mind. And we live in a body, in all three parts to who and what we are, are interconnected, and interdependent, which means what affects one part of our being will, by necessity alter the others. So we want to be careful to take care of all parts of a human being. And that's what God cares about. And First Thessalonians 5:23, we see this, may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, may your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So God cares about all three parts of our being. And Hebrews 4:12 says this, For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two edged sword, and piercing as far as the divisions of soul and spirit. There's their mind and our spirit. In both joints and marrow, there's the body, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart, and the heart, or the spirit, soul and body, all wrapped up into one. So there again, we have a holistic view of a human being. And that's what God is concerned with. And that's what we should be concerned with. The next episode, I'm gonna go into some more specifics as to what that actually looks like. But I think there's going to be too much for this episode. So I wanted to just lay the groundwork, because if you understand the foundational truths that I'm about to share in this episode, my recommendations for how we treat spirit, mind and body are going to be more meaningful to you. So I encourage you to hang in there to the end this we're going to be sharing. I'm going to be sharing a lot of foundational truths here. So here's an important statement. Are you ready for it? Drumroll please. It's my contention that God wants us healthy. There I said it When I say that to some of my Christian friends, I sometimes see some raised eyebrows. And they say, Dave, are you? Are you advocating some type of prosperity gospel or some type of name and claim it theology? No, not at all. And I'm going to have more to say on this later in the episode, but I'm advocating the exact opposite of name it and claim it. And I encourage you again to hang in there to the end of the episode, because I'm going to be touching on that some more a little bit later on down the road. The Bible has a lot to say, on God's desire for health and well being. I'm going to be sharing a lot of verses here. But let's for now, let's just consider this 1/3 John, one, two, beloved, I pray that at all respects, you may prosper and be in good health. So God wants us healthy. I'm going to have a lot more verses on that later. God's love for us is greater than we can imagine. Jesus himself said in John 15:13, Greater love has no man than this, that he laid down his life for his friends. And then we see in Ephesians, 3:18. Oh, that you may comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth of the love of Christ. So God loves us with an everlasting love, and it's greater than we can fathom. It, we also know that he's faithful and trustworthy. He's the same yesterday, today forever. And he's also our Heavenly Father, Romans 8:15 says, You have received a spirit of adoption by which we cry out Abba, Father. And just as any loving parent wants what's best for the children, God wants what's best for us. Now, unlike earthly parents, God is omniscient. He knows everything. He even knows the future. So he knows the outcome our choices gotta have before we even make them. So with that in mind, we can conclude and I believe rightly so that when God tells us to do something, he gives us an admonition, it's for our benefit. And if he tells us to avoid something gives us some type of prohibition, it's for our protection, you can take those two truths to the bank, there's never a tie when those two truths don't apply. We've got to hold on to that. Now, when you have this understanding, the Bible becomes a plethora, or a treasure trove of information for health and well being. It's everywhere. When I first discovered this, and I started reading the Bible through the different lens, the verses pertaining to our health and well being just started popping up everywhere. And I'm gonna share a few of those in a few minutes. But right now, I want you to understand how we see God is very critical, are the standing of God's nature and character are really, really foundational to what I'm trying to communicate here. Because why would we align our lives more fully with someone that doesn't care about us? Or if he can't be trusted? Why would we surrender to that, but of course, God can be trusted. So I found that there's basically three different ways people see God, in one. And this is really tragic. A lot of people will maybe not a lot, but some people see God as an angry tyrant or vengeful dictator. When I was living in Florida, the guy across the street from me who owned a landscape business, and he was constantly tinkering with his yard and planting a tree or trimming the bushes, and he really had a beautiful yard. So you spent a lot of time out there. So we would talk from time to time out in the street, and I come to find out that he didn't have a home church. So I invited him to come to my church come and visit. And he said, Hold a you don't want me to go to your church. If I walk through those doors, God's gonna send lightning bolts. So he had a very, very distorted view of God's nature and character. Another example of this is we have an eight month old dog at home. And when we brought her home as a puppy, one of the first things I wanted to train into her was to come when I call her because if your dog's ready to run into the street and the cars coming, you want her to listen to you. So I started going online and looking at what how professional trainers trained dogs to come when you call them. And what you need to do is each time they come on command, you make sure that when they get to you, you reward them heavily. You give them their favorite treat, you give them lots of praise and petting. And you know, good girl, good boy, because you want the dog to know when they come on command and they come to you. Something good is about to happen. And that's the same way we want to be with God. When we come to Him, we should expect something good to happen. Right? I think one of the reasons why people look at God this way as a tyrant or dictator is a fundamental misunderstanding about God's law. God's law is very, very different from a man made law. Man made or imperial law is enforced is a set of rules that's enforced with the punishment or some type of obedience that's demanded. And there's a punishment attached to for disobedience. God's law is altogether different. God's law is a natural design law, that he's baked into creation. It's just the way things are. So God's design laws are consistent with the way he made the universe to operate. So again, that's another point that I want to talk to talk to some more in a minute. But that's a that's a fundamental understanding that we need to understand that God's law is not like a man made law. He's not the cosmic policeman in the sky, just waiting to pounce on us when we mess up. That's not the way God operates. A second way that people see God is that he's very distant, somewhat might say, Well, yeah, I believe God exists. And I believe that he loves me. But he's too busy running the universe to be concerned with my little old life. Well, that's an incorrect perception as well. For example, in Luke chapter 12, verses six and seven, we see this, what is the price of five sparrows, two copper coins, yet God does not forget a single one of them. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid, you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.

David Sandstrom 2:11
So the third way to see God in the more accurate way, is as a loving parent, although God is all powerful, he's deeply personal. And he's concerned with every aspect of our lives. If we understand the goodness of God, and we understand the love of God, we wouldn't hesitate to come to him. So what's God's primary nature, although God is forgiving, the Bible doesn't say that God is forgiveness. Although he's all knowing. The Bible doesn't say God is knowledge. Although God is all powerful. The Bible doesn't say God is power. But the Bible does say that God is love. It's his core attribute. It's his fundamental characteristic. And he'll never act in a way that's not in harmony with his most important core identity, which is love. So we've got to learn how to surrender to His loving kindness and goodness, if we were going to go on an African Safari, we would do well to hire a guide. Because the guide knows the way he's been down this path before. He knows where the hazards are, he knows where the cliffs are, he knows where the animals might be hanging out, or a snake, you know where the danger is. So we would do well to stick close to and listen to our guide. In the same way. God is our guide in life. Okay, he's, he knows the path. He knows the way and we do well to stick close to Him, listen to Him, and do what he says. So, again, I want to hit some of the highlights of how we treat how God wants us to treat our spirit, mind and body. But But I want to do the foundational work first, I really want you to understand why I make the recommendations that I do. Right. So one of the things I want you to understand is the difference between the naturopathic approach to health and the allopathic approach to health. l apathy. Allopathic medicine is the way medical doctors are trained. So the A, the prefix A in,al-o pathy stands for opposed to or opposite of, if you are asymptomatic, you have no symptoms. If you're an atheist, you are opposed to theism or the theology, the study of the Bible. And the suffix opathy simply means disease or disorder. So l apathy or allopathic medicine, is opposed to or in opposition to the disease, or the illness. Doctors and hospitals want to treat your tumor. They want to treat your arthritis or you name it anything, anything unless long list of diseases, they're after that they want to relieve your symptoms. So an allopathic practitioner, that trainee will tell them to name it, blame it and tame it. You go to the doctor, you tell him what's going on, he listens to you. It takes your collection of symptoms and he gives it a name and calls it a disease. Then they blame your symptoms on that disease. And then they want to tame it with drugs and surgery. Now, that's a little tongue in cheek, but it's really not too far from the truth. Now, don't misunderstand allopathic medicine has its place. It's great for emergencies. Emergency rooms here in United States, second to none. I get busted up in a car accident, man, roll me into the nearest emergency room. Give me all the drugs and surgery you need to save my life. Absolutely appropriate use of allopathic medicine. But when it comes to long term health challenges, that allopathic model can starts to lose its luster. The truth is what we call health care here in the US, a better term for it will be disease management, because they're going after the disease. The allopathic practitioner is trained to treat the illness that has the person, but naturopathic practitioner is trained to treat the person that has the illness. There is a very, very different approach to health here. Let me say that again, allopathic medicine, trains doctors to treat the illness that has the person but naturopathic model trains the practitioner to treat the person that has the illness. So naturopathy, is that a natural and more holistic approach to health care, which I believe is far more consistent with biblical teaching. So I see a ton of overlap between what the Bible teaches, and the naturopathic approach to health. I've been a follower of Jesus Christ for 31 years, and I've been a naturopath for 15 years. And when I started studying naturopathy, I saw that there was just a ton of overlap. So Well, the Bible teaches that teaches that as well.

David Sandstrom 16:04
So let me explain the six core tenets to naturopathy. The first one is, first do no harm. So we want to treat our bodies like stewards, because our bodies are really not our own, their holy and sacred because they're the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is their first Corinthians 6:19. and 20 says this, or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who was in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own, for you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. So taking care of our bodies is a matter of stewardship. If I owned a Lamborghini, and I was going to go away for a couple of weeks, and I said to you, hey, you know, this car, the engine needs to be run once in a while, it needs to be warmed up, the tires need to be exercised, here's the keys, I want you to run by car for a few times while I'm gone. Well, when you took that car out, you'd want to take care of it, wouldn't you, you'd put premium gasoline in it. You know, if you if you drove through a mud puddle, you make sure you clean it up, when you got home, when you drove it, you'd have the hands, your hands in that tenant to position very alert, right, you would want to take care of that car, you wouldn't want to damage it because it belongs to you. And in the same way, we should treat our bodies with reverence and respect. Because God wants us to treat them like we are like a stewardship. Alright.

David Sandstrom 17:28
So the second naturopathic principle is the healing power of nature. Now God has given our bodies a built in intelligence. And Psalm 139:14 says, I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works it my soul knows it very well. So our bodies are incredibly complex. Most biologists would tell us that the adult human body has something like 75 trillion cells with a T. And that's a lot of cells. And when I do seminars, I'll ask people, How long if I started counting seconds, how long do you think it would take to count 75 trillion seconds. And usually someone raised their hand and say something like 150 years, and someone might might even be as bold to say, 10,000 years or something like that? Well, because I'm a geek, I did the math on this 75 trillion seconds is actually 3.2 million years. That's a lot of cells. And each of our cells is interacting with each other, and they're responding to their environment. And they're communicating with the brain, via our nervous systems, and our hormones. And it's just incredibly complex. To think that we can outsmart our bodies with drugs, over the long haul, is just foolishness, really, we can't do it. So rather than trying to outsmart our bodies with drugs, we should lean on that God given wisdom of the body, in just get the obstacles out of the way, and let our bodies do what they already know how to do, and that is to thrive. You see, our cells know how to do their jobs. Give you an example. If I was preparing dinner, and I cut my finger with a kitchen knife, I don't have to tell my body to dispatch fibrin and other clotting factors to stop the bleeding. I don't have to tell my body to dispatch cholesterol and other cellular repair proteins to start repairing the skin and the arteries and the capillaries around the wound. I didn't have to tell my body to dispatch white blood cells and other immune system components to protect me from any would be infection that might be present. I don't have to tell my body how to form a scab in order to dispatch enzymes when the scab is no longer needed to dissolve the scab to fall off. All of that happens by default. It's automatic. It happens behind the scenes we don't have we don't give it a single conscious thought. That's God's design and that Very, very consistent with the naturopathic principle of the healing power of nature. In nature apathy, we call that vitalism. This God- given built in intelligence to the body that knows how to heal, our default setting is health.

David Sandstrom 20:16
So, naturopathic principle number three, identify and treat the cause, stay going after symptoms, try to go as far down that causal chain as you can, and treat the cause and let the symptoms go away on their own. The Bible once again, it's very, very consistent here. First Samuel 16:7 says this, For God sees not as man sees for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart in a similar fashion. When you go to a doctor and he gives you a diagnosis, he's looking at your symptoms. The symptoms are on the outside, but the root cause is on the inside. Right. So we want to look underneath the surface and go as far down that causal chain as we can.

David Sandstrom 21:01
Naturopathic principle number four, the physician is teacher. Again, the Bible is very, very consistent with this that we should be seeking out teachers Ephesians 4:11, it he gave some His apostles, some prophets, some evangelists is some as pastors and teachers. The Latin verb for a doctor is the Docera, which means to teach. So a naturopathic doctor is a teacher of natural health. And that's what I am, I'm a teacher of natural health.

David Sandstrom 21:32
Naturopathic principle number five, treat the whole person. We already talked a little bit about this God's concern with the whole person, First Thessalonians 5:23. May your whole spirit soul and body be preserved complete. Another example of the holism would be in from Genesis to verse seven. Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, there's the body and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and that word breath is spirit. And the man became a living soul. Or mind, soul and mind are synonymous in the Bible. So there's three parts to human being, spirit, mind and body. You know, when I had my health coaching practice, had a brick and mortar business with an office and I, I saw people I did health coaching, I called myself holistic. But the truth of the matter is, I didn't know what the term meant. I was natural, but it wasn't holistic, because I was making the same mistake that a lot of practitioners are making. And that is I was almost 100% focused on the physical and I all but ignored the spiritual and the mental emotional components to a human being. And I now know that's folly. You know what I was a young man living in South Florida, mid 80s. I was a Miami Dolphin fan. And at the time, Dan Marino was the Miami Dolphins quarterback. And the head coach was Don Shula. And one time I heard Don Shula say, you know, when I first saw Dan Marino play, I said to myself, This guy's got the best arm I've ever seen. I'm gonna build my team around this guy's arm. And that's exactly what he did. He hired a couple great wide receivers. The names were Mark Clayton and Mark Cooper, we called on the mark brothers. And they had fast legs and sticky hands. And with Dan Marino's quick release, they had a passing offense that was second to none, arguably the best passing offense that the game has ever seen. But as good as that trio was, and as good as Dan Marino was, he never won a Super Bowl, he doesn't have Super Bowl ring. Why? Because even though they have an unbelievable passing offense, the dolphins ignored the defense. And they didn't have a running game. So they couldn't win a championship with one part of a great team, they needed all three. And the same is true with us. If we want to build a championship vitality, we've got to address the whole person, spirit, mind and body, not just one part the physical. Right. So that's, that's one of the big reasons why I wrote my book, The Christians Guide to Holistic Health, which by the way, is a 325. Page, paperback. And it's, it's, if you want to go deeper here, pick up a copy of my book, it's called the Christians guide to list a cow. If you go to my website, davidsandstrom.com or Amazon, you can find it there. You can If this message is resonating with you, you might enjoy reading my book.

David Sandstrom 24:28
So naturopathic principle number six is prevention. And once again, the Bible is very, very consistent here. Instead of waiting till we get sick and trying to treat the disease, why not? Try to not get sick in the first place? Have our bodies be more resilient to resist disease. And again, the Bible is consistent. Exodus 15:26 If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his sight and give ear to his commandments. I keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you, which I put on the Egyptians for I the Lord, am your healer. So the best way to be cancer is to not get it in the first place, works every time. So the practitioners job is to get the obstacles out of the way, and let these magnificent bodies of ours do what they already know how to do, and that is to thrive. So how does God and the Bible tie in to all this? But what about those verses I was talking about on health. Alright, here we go. Here's a few. Isaiah 58, verses 10 and 11. And if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday. And the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desires and scorched places and give strength to your bones. And you'll be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters Do not fail. Isn't that beautiful poetry? I really love that promise. Or how about Psalm 103. Bless the Lord, oh, my soul and forget none of his benefits, who pardons all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases? Who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion, Who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle. This is one of my favorites right here. Proverbs four verses 20 and 22. My son, give attention to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight. Keep them in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their body. And here's another great one. Once again, look at Proverbs chapter three, verses seven and eight. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord, in turn away from evil, it will be healing to your body and refreshment to your bones. So again, we do well to pay attention to these promises. But just because these are promises in the Bible doesn't mean that health is guaranteed. These promises are often conditional. And they're more like principles. Okay? So health is not guaranteed. We can't just claim health and wellness here. We have a role to play. There's many if then or therefore statements attached to these promises. But I can tell you this, we will never regret doing things God's way. vibrant health and vitality are never guaranteed. Jesus said in this world, you will have trouble John 16:33. But there are principles from the Bible that we do well to adopt as lifestyle choices that increase our chances of better health outcomes. We don't follow him for the perks. We follow God because he's worthy in good health is simply a fringe benefit to doing things God's way. It's like a side effect. Right? So it's not the primary reason why we want to follow God, we follow God because He's the source of life. And when we do things his way, we experience better health outcomes. So there's more to say on this. And we'll get into some of that in a bit. Again, we maximize our health potential by aligning our lives more fully with God's natural design for spirit, mind and body. So how does God become our healer? Well, John 15:5 says, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, bears much fruit. For apart from me, you could do nothing. It's Jesus speaking. When we align our lives more fully with God's natural design, we're abiding in Christ, and we produce more fruit of the Spirit. And many of you know that fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:23 is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there are there is no law. Now all of the fruit are health promoting. Now I could do an episode all by itself and I think I'll do that down the road. And I want to break down each one of the fruits of the Spirit and show you from the published peer reviewed medical literature how science is catching up with these admonitions that God is giving us. I think that will be a good episode, but for now we're just gonna we're gonna have to put that on the shelf. Consider the second fruit joy. Proverbs 17:22 says a joyful heart is good medicine. But a broken spirit dries the bones. Or how about a third fruit peace. Matthew 11:28 says, Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

David Sandstrom 29:57
Do you think more peace could promote health You bet it would be about the last fruit self control, could a little more self control help out with your new Healthy Eating program? I'll bet it could. You see, God has our well being in mind. When we abide in Him, we produce more fruit of the Spirit, in all of it is health promoting. And by the way, that's also aligning our lives with God's natural design, which is being in harmony with his design laws for nature. More on that in a little bit. So it brings God pleasure to see us filled with his fruit. But there's also a more pragmatic reason that God's desires, health and vitality for us. He wants us to advance his kingdom here on earth, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in the Lord's Prayer. He has assignments for us. He wants us to be productive members of society in service to other human beings, by which we bring a little bit of Heaven down to earth. Ephesians 2:10 says this, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we would walk in them. He wants us to share His love with others. John 13:35, by this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. God's love is beneficent. It's always other centered, that each one of us has unique passions and desires and skill sets. And there's some things that we can do better than anyone else. And we should be doing some of that for our pleasure. That's part of God's design, for sure. But when it comes to your life purpose, or your life mission, it's always going to include service to others, because that's God's design. We see this in Philippians, two, three, and four, do nothing from selfish or empty conceit. But with humility of mind regard one another, as more important than yourselves, did not really look out for your own personal interest, but also for the interest of others. You see, we can only give out of our abundance, I flew as an airline pilot for 35 years, and I got to see a lot of a lot of this, this country in this planet, really. And I would often marvel at the way the rivers flow through the land. And sometimes you'd see an area like, for instance, the Hoover Dam, outside of Las Vegas, you'd see it dammed up in this huge body of water was collected. Well, in order for the for the reservoir to work properly to function, it had to have a constant inflow of water. And that way the reservoir would put in what's filled to the top can give its water without being depleted itself. And the same is true with with our ability to give, we want to be like a reservoir, so filled up with the love of God, so filled up with energy and vitality, that it just spills out onto the people around us. And we can give to others without being depleted ourselves. That's God's design. So, in order to fulfill our purpose, and participate in the good works, God has for us Ephesians 2:10, we need health in spirit, mind and body. In order to be dialed in on our purpose, we need clarity of mind, we need energy, stamina, positive moods, we need to be filled with the Spirit, especially love, joy and peace. It wouldn't make sense for God to put obstacles in our way and hinder us from performing the good works that he has for us. Doesn't make sense at all. He doesn't do that. He wants health for us. That's his desire. So I believe that our obedience sets us up for blessings. We don't follow God for the perks. But good health, again is a fringe benefit or a byproduct of doing things God's way. So obedience to God's word leads to more love, joy and peace and love joy, peace produces better health outcomes. It's just the way it works. It's part of God's design law.

David Sandstrom 34:00
Remember, I told you some people think this is a prosperity gospel or naming claim it? Not at all. It's the exact opposite actually, because our obedience should be born out of a love relationship and a grateful heart. Jesus said in John 14:15 If you love me, you'll do as I say. We can't expect the friends benefit to following God to show up in our lives without obedience to His is clear instructions. Many if not most of the promises in Scripture are conditional. They have if then statements attached. One of the more famous ones is Second Chronicles 7:14. You've probably heard this but it's worth repeating here. If my people who are called by my name, humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and heal their land. See there's an if then statement in there. Okay. There's something required of God's people. They need to humble themselves. Pray and seek His face, then he will hear from heaven and heal the land. See the if then there. It's a matter of sowing and reaping Galatians six, seven says, Do not be deceived, God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows, this, he will also reap. If you plant a tomato seed, you're not gonna see an apple tree grow, we can't plant a cucumber seed and expect a mango tree to grow. In the same fashion. There are consequences attached to the other end of our choices. Andy Stanley wrote a whole book on this, he called it the principle of the path. And basically what it's what it says is there, the path that we choose the road that we put ourselves on lead somewhere. God's ways lead to life, and well being. And when we operate outside of his design laws for life, we don't have those protections, we can't expect the protections. So God has baked into his design laws which govern how creation is designed to operate.

David Sandstrom 36:05
So he has physical laws baked in like the law of gravity, or the laws of thermodynamics and energy. This also a moral laws, do not steal, do not lie, did not commit adultery, all designed with our well being in mind. And then there's also health was, for instance, the law of exertion and rest. You could look at these as rules. But it wouldn't be healthy. So someone might say, well, I don't like rules. So I'm not going to obey this law of exertion at rest. I don't like following rules, so I'm not going to sleep anymore. Well, there's got to be some health consequences that are in pretty short order. Or how about the law of respiration, we breathe and we exhale, co2, carbon dioxide, and it's used by plants. And plants produce oxygen, and that oxygen is used by us. Now what if we were to deviate from that design law and say, I'm, I'm not giving my co2 away, it's my co2, I'm gonna keep it. And we put a plastic bag over our head and duct tape it around our neck. Well, at first, you're not going to experience anything. But after a few minutes, your your fingers are going to start to tingle, your lips are going to start to turn blue, you're going to get dizzy, maybe you may start to hallucinate. And eventually, if that is not that condition is not corrected, you will die. Right. So when we deviate from God's design laws, there's consequences to that donating point in time, that person with the bag over the head, you just removed the bag. And now that consequence has been interrupted. So God doesn't punish us for violating His law. But he doesn't spare us from the consequences of those violations. There were those those poor, those undesirable outcomes are just waiting for us at the other end of our poor choices. So we want to make choices that are in harmony with God's decide laws for life, and heart in harmony with his designs for health, and experience better health outcomes as a result, choices that are not in alignment with God's designed laws for health lead to poor health outcomes. Galatians 6:8 says this, For the one who sews to his own flesh, from the flesh will read corruption. But the one who sews to the spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. reaping what we've sown is an eternal principle or law, like the law of gravity, it doesn't change. It applies to everyone. It doesn't matter if we believe in it or not. If we disobey it, there's going to be consequences. So there are blessings attached to our obedience. But those blessings are conditional. We have a role to play. We shouldn't gloss over those if-then statements in the Bible. A good example of this is Joshua, 1:8 excellent principle here. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night. So that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it, then you will make your right prospers, then you will have success.

David Sandstrom 39:02
So we shouldn't expect prosperity or success without being obedient to the Word of God. Psalm 8:1 says this, all that my people would listen to me that Israel would walk in my ways, I would quickly subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their adversaries, I would feed you with the finest of wheat and with honey from the rock, I would satisfy you. Again, beautiful poetry here. Or how about Psalm 19? The law of the Lord is perfect restoring the soul. The judgments of the Lord are true. They are righteous all together. They are more desirable than gold. Yes, then much fine gold, sweeter also than honey, and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them, your servant is warned. In keeping them there is great reward. So is this name-it-and-claim-it? I don't think so. We want to understand who God is his primary Every characteristic at essence is in his core of his being, God is love. And we should be willing to surrender to His goodness in his loving kindness. Our obedience should be born out of a grateful heart. This puts us in better positions to receive blessings. If we want to enjoy a warm shower, we've got to step inside the shower stall. Alright, we don't want to be outside of it. We want to be inside of God's God's design. So what are the specifics that God wants us to do for our spirit, mind and body? Well, I don't have time to go into them in this episode. So we're just gonna have to wait for the next episode for that. But let me give you a little teaser. There's three parts to a human being. And I like to focus on three pillars of health within each part. So three times three is nine focus areas are nine pillars of health. Our spirit is all about love relationships, or love relationship with God, our love for others, and love for ourselves. The mind is all about having the proper mindset, enjoying victory over limiting beliefs, and practicing emotional intelligence, the body, three focus areas there are nutrition, movement, and sleep. And in the next episode, I'm going to be going to detail on each one of those. And if you do those nine things right, you're going to go a long way towards enjoying vibrant health and vitality. So that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I enjoyed putting it together. I hope you have a better idea and a better feel for what my heart's desire is for you of the National Nation. And what this show is really all about what I'm really trying to accomplish here. Thanks for listening. I'll talk with you next time, be blessed. For more, go to the show notes page at davidsandstrom.com/120. There you can find an audio as well as a video version of the podcast. I always put some type of a content upgrade to help you go deeper with that subject, as well as a full downloadable transcript that you can print out and take with you read it later. If you're joining the show, to share would appreciate you telling a friend about it. Now this information on natural and holistic health from a biblical perspective is pretty hard to come by. And I'll bet it's you're gonna have a hard time finding another show that brings the kind of information that I bring. So if you have like minded friend who's a follower of Jesus Christ, or somebody who's just curious about their health in general, I would appreciate you telling them about the show. Thank you for listening, and I'll talk with you next time. Be blessed.