With that one clear statement, Paul summarizes a recurring theme in the Bible: God cares about your health! God cares about every part of your health - your mental health, your emotional health, your spiritual health and your physical health. It's important for you and me to understand that while our God wants to answer he big questions of life - why are we here? And what is our destiny and purpose? - God also is deeply concerned about the way that we live each day.

Lenoard Sweet sums up how too many of us live with The Ten Commandments of How To Be a Stressed Out, Unhappy Person All The Time.

If you answerd "yes" to three or more of these then you are probably need to take notes and listen well.

I find myself biting off more than I can chew again this week - the Bible's attention to our health is extensive and far-reaching. You can take any principle from this sermon and study more completely what God wants for you, but I want to provide a Biblical overview to good health, according to God's Word, by highlighting 4 habits of healthy people.

Habit #1. Eat right.

(ill) There was a woman who died and went to heaven, and found it so beautiful that she could hardly wait for her husband to join her. When he did, some time later, she was so happy, and excitedly asked him, "Isn't this the most beautiful place you've ever seen?" With a touch of disgust, the husband replied, "Yes, and if it weren't for you and your durn oat bran, I could have been here five years earlier!"

I really debated over how to word this habit - whether I should say "Eat a low-fat, low cal diet." Or, "Eat all the meat and protein you can, but no carbs diet." Or, "Eat a low sugar diet." Frankly, science changes it's mind as to what is "RIGHT" to eat. Nutritional community has come full circle on some things, like from butter to margerine and back to butter - when deciding what it means to eat right.

The medical establishment is weighing in on the Adkins diet with different opinions, and if you are a lay-person like myself, you might not be too sure who or what to believe. What I do believe is true, is the statistic I saw that 35% of deaths in America are directly attributable to diet. We are guilty of eating too much of the wrong stuff, and too much in general.

One magazine referred to our love affair with the hot dog as "weenie worship" - and pointed out that the average Westerner will eat twenty cows, fourteen hundred chickens, twelve pigs and thirteen sheep in his or her lifetime. Maybe that makes the opening line of Paul Theroux's Millroy The Magician even more insightful, when it says "How can you take any relegion seriously if it leaves out nutrition?"

Jesus Christ came to show us how to live- with respect to Our Father, each other and ourselves. Jesus was fond of food, or at least of the process of eating food. I want you to think for a moment about how many times Jesus is in a situation where people are eating.

• feeding 5000
• wedding feast at Cana
• Last Supper
• Eating at Zacheus' house
• Eating at Simon the Pharisees house
• Eating with Mary and Martha
• Broiling fish for breakfast on the shore of the Sea of Galillee
• Passover meals are recorded three times in John

Jesus didn't avoid eating, and if He had severe dietary restrictions, they certainly aren't recorded in Scripture. He also never rushed through a kosher take-out, and from what we read, He ate most of His meals in the company of others. Food was a pathway to fellowship for Christ, an invitation for someone to sit and be with the Lord. Perhaps because it hits me so close to home, the first reminders about eating right are

• Don't eat so fast.
• Make it a point to eat with others whenever you can.

Eating slower is proven to be linked with eating less, which makes Mom right when she said "Don't gobble your food." And health can only be improved when we exchange fast food for family dinners.

So what does it mean to eat right? That may differ from person to person.

The Old testament instructs us not to eat fat, and while we are not bound to the Mosaic Law, it certainly established some regulations that were grounded in the Israelites health. Rich, heavy foods in excess just aren't food for us.

Proverbs 23 says not to crave the delicacies of a rich man. And over and over the Bible warns about eating too much.

Lest we forget, gluttony, or eating more than we need, is a sin.

Bottom line, food is a necessary part of life, but when it controls us, we're on dangerous ground.

These four rules seemed like good sense to me:

Stress has become the disease of choice for Americans. It is also killing us. USAmerica estimates that stress related injuries cost $200 billion annually. The International Labor Organization calls stress the "21st century disease." Physician Robert Anderson implicates stress in 90% of the patients he treats.

R & R is not just one dimensional, either. Stress plays havoc on our mental and emotional health, as well as our physical well being. And we glory in our busyness! But the Bible says:

So what are we to do?

• Reaffirm your hope in the Lord.

Working moms, statistically you are the most likely to bear the largest load of stress. Supermom complex is epedemic, especially among Christians. The answer is not to work harder so that you can get out from under the load. The answer is Jesus.

Good health means receiving peace, not to trying to create it.

Some astute Bible scholar in the crowd may say, "harry, the Bible never says we are to exercise." And to you I would reply, "Yes, but Jesus walked everywhere He went."

Look, Jesus walked from town to town, preaching the kingdom of heaven. He invited His disciples to come and walk with Him. He instructed the crowds how to walk righteously before the Lord. He even walked on water. There's something to be said, for the body and the mind, to walk.

Is any of what I just said earth-shattering, or completely new for us? I doubt it. But it's important to talk about health in the context of our faith, because God is concened with the whole of us. When the prophet Isaiah foretold of the Messiah, Jesus, in language that is familiar to believers, he said:

We can be confident that the healing spoken of is eternal, for Jesus on the cross paid for and healed us from our sins. But He also came to prove Himself more poweful than all afflictions, to vanquish death , by giving life. We know this also applies to this life, because in the Old testament, in Exodus 15, God revealed Hmself as Jehoveh-Rapha, the God who heals.

Does that mean that if you place your faith in Christ, you are guarantted to never be sick, or guaranted that if you get sick, God will take your illness away? No, but it shows us that God's heart extends to every part of our life. Abundant life means living to the fullest, and trusting God that heaven is what He said it is - aplace with no sickness or pain.

In the meantime, we follow Hs Word, and pattern our lives after Jesus', so that we can enjoy to the fullest what He has blessed us with. And when we get sick, we do what he said:

God wants you to be well ? but He wants first for you to be washed. Clean, forgiven ? in the blood that His Son Jesus shed on a cross so that we might be healed.

I want to invite you to the ultimate healing - the eternal healing of your soul.

I also want to invite you to seek out prayer

I want to challenge us - to view our health, not as an option, but as a part of our faith walk. To create the best temple, body, that we can for the Lord to live in.