Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding,
in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and depart from evil.
And listen to this, verse 8, it will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones.
♪♪
Physician Andrew Weil, Research Associate in Ethnopharmacology at Harvard,
and author of Health and Healing Rites,
external material objects never cause disease.
But these agents are merely agents looking for a susceptible host.
If we have poor coping skills, deficient social support, and high stress on our bodies,
they become upset and our resistance is lowered.
And then an agent of disease finds fertile ground in which to develop
or might act as straw ready for a fire, end quote.
So all of us are exposed to pathogens every day.
All of us are exposed to germs.
If we walk anywhere into any building in this city or in your city,
you're going to be exposed to germs.
You're going to be around people who are coughing.
You're going to be around people who shake your hand,
who did not wash their hands appropriately today.
All of us have cancer cells.
All of us are in some way, shape, or form going outside where there's pollution.
All of us are in rooms where there's electromagnetic connectors
looking for a host in our bodies.
When I drove in today, there was a car, a van,
really nice town and country van, where the alarm was just going off.
Bom, bom, bom.
And it had been going on for quite a while.
And I got out of my car.
I walked up, and there was one of our assistants
with the electronic alarm system to cut it off.
And it would not cut off from the door of the church
all the way out to the car in the parking lot
until she took the alarm and stuck it underneath her chin.
So she took the alarm, stuck it underneath her chin, punched it.
Alarm went off.
Because our bodies are conducive to electricity,
and so it flowed better to get the distance that it needed
flowing through her head and her cavity out to the car
than just pointing it in that direction.
That shows you how conducive we are to the electromagnetic rays
that are flowing through our bodies all the time.
So here's my thesis.
My thesis is the more you line up with God's purposes,
spiritually, emotionally, mentally, relationally, and physically,
the healthier, more vibrant, and more resilient your life will become.
The result will be a maximum impact.
Listen to God's word on health from Proverbs 3.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Lean not on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
Do not be wise in your own eyes.
Fear the Lord and depart from evil.
And listen to this, verse 8.
It will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones.
Solomon here, the wisest man in the world at that time,
is saying that when you trust God with your heart, I mean spiritually,
when you lean not on your understanding but the understanding of God,
that's mentally, when you direct your paths and you're not wise in your own eyes,
that God's going to actually cause your body to function better
and you're going to be healed in a powerful way.
So look at this diagram again.
You see these four concentric circles that are sort of a powerful visual
of the prescription of a high-impact life,
that if we will stay healthy mentally,
if we will stay healthy emotionally and relationally,
if we'll stay healthy spiritually, if we'll stay healthy physically,
we're going to have a high-impact life.
So let me give you what I think are seven tips,
seven tips for a maximum-impact life.
The first one, this is really important,
and this particular one can be set over all of the others,
and that is be wholehearted.
Seek the King.
Seek the kingdom of God first with all of your heart.
The Bible has more to say about the heart than anything else.
Seventy-two percent of all the verses in the Bible
have to do with, in some way, shape, or form, the heart.
So God is very, very interested in your heart.
And being wholehearted means you're all in.
It means your heart is clean.
And it's about intimacy with God, being wholehearted with him.
And so Dr. McLaughlin of Women's Medical College in Philadelphia says that quote, 65% to 85%
of all sickness is rooted in the mental and spiritual, 99% of headaches, 75% of stomach
disorders, 75% of asthma, and 75% of skin disease.
So when we follow the kingdom laws of the universe, the kingdom laws of seeking first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness, things line up, things go better in our lives.
So seek first the kingdom, be wholehearted, that's the most important thing.
The kingdom of God is God's total program for total health.
The greatest sermon some could argue on healthy living is the Sermon on the Mount.
That's Matthew 5, 6, and 7.
At a medical convention in the 1960s, after much debate, adopted a resolution that the
best description and the best prescription for total health was the Sermon on the Mount.
And they replaced, instead of blessed, they replaced it with healthy.
Healthier those who are poor in spirit, healthier those with a gentle spirit, healthier those
who hunger and thirst for righteousness.
In other words, Matthew 5, 3 through 12, if we were to put healthy in there, they felt,
these physicians felt, this was the most important prescription for overall health in all of
their patients.
So first of all, be wholehearted.
Second, meditation in truth.
Meditation in truth.
Meditate in and study God's word.
We've hijacked our thoughts by letting all of the bad news, all the fake news, maybe
we should say all the unhealthy news, constantly filter into our hearts.
And God calls us to meditate on truth.
That means ruminate on truth.
And so God wants us thinking about truth, meditating in truth.
Because truth, Jesus says, is what sets us free.
So when we meditate on truth, when we know the truth, Jesus says, that knowing of the
truth sets us free.
So I think you could also say, knowing falsehood, living in falsehood, thinking about falsehood
is going to enslave you.
So God wants us to walk in truth, live truth.
It sets our spirits free.
It sets our souls free to know that we're basing our lives on truth.
And truth is kind of like a fire.
So the fire of truth burns up falsehood.
The fire of truth burns up lies.
It's painful sometimes, though.
I mean, sometimes when we become a truth seeker, we make truth our goal.
We realize maybe some of the people we've been listening to, maybe some of the things
that we've been reading aren't truth.
That's not truth.
So truth, the seeking of truth, the meditation of truth, begins with God's word.
The most intimate books of the entire Bible is the book of Psalms.
And Psalms 1, this is what it says.
This is the opening of all the Psalms, 150 Psalms in the Bible, right in the center of
your Bible.
This is Psalm 1.
And I think Psalm 1 sets the theme for all of the Psalms.
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of
sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord.
And in his law, he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its
season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper.
So this is one of the great prosperity passages of the Bible.
You compare this with Joshua 1.
So Psalm 1 and Joshua 1 almost say the exact same thing, that if you meditate in truth,
if we meditate and think on the law of God, we're going to be successful.
We're going to prosper.
And without going out on a limb here and saying too much, I will say this, that there is truth
all through Scripture that the more and the deeper and the more consistent we obey God,
blessings come our way.
All through Scripture, it says that.
Look at Deuteronomy 28.
If you look at Deuteronomy 28, it talks about the blessings and the cursings that come with
obedience or disobedience.
disobedience in our lives.
And here, David is telling us that the way to become a man
who is blessed, the way to become a man who will prosper
and who will bear great fruit in his life
is one who delights in the law of the Lord
and meditates in it day and night.
If you drive out east from Colorado Springs where I live
and you're headed toward Kansas or Nebraska,
you're gonna see great, huge, massive land
where there's very few trees.
And whenever you see a clump of trees,
you'll see usually oak trees right near a stream of water
because those roots go down and they can grab that water,
they're nourished, and decade after decade,
those trees grow only there.
But outside of where the streams of water are,
there's no vegetation except for prairie grasses and cactus.
So that's a metaphor of our life
and this is probably exactly what David is talking about.
He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water.
So if you look at any desert, it's like that.
And that's the way it is at least in Colorado
on the east side of our state.
According to Johns Hopkins Medicine,
positive thinking is linked
to a wide range of health benefits.
So those who are meditating on truth,
those who are meditating on righteousness,
those who are meditating on the positive,
here's what Johns Hopkins Medicine says
are the benefits to you.
Better stress management and coping skills,
enhanced psychological health,
greater resistance to the common cold,
increased physical well-being,
longer lifespan, lower rates of depression,
and reduced risk of cardiovascular disease-related death.
One study of 1,558 older adults
found that positive thinking
could also reduce frailty during old age.
The power of meditation on truth,
the power of positive thinking affects our mental health.
So I challenge you today that you would seek first the kingdom,
you'd be wholehearted.
Second tip, that you'd meditate in truth,
you'd think on truth,
you would live out the truth
that you're inculcating into your spirit and into your mind.
It will enable you and empower you
to have a high-impact life
and to prosper in literally everything that you do.