The Soul Ties It All Together

I was recently listening to a sermon by Erwin McManus from Mosaic, a Christian community in the LA area. The message, Restore Your Health, is from a series entitled ‘Vital Signs’ - you can download the message or the entire series from iTunes. Erwin chose 3 John Chapter 1 verse 2 as the theme for his message:

Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit. (New Living Translation)

His premise for the sermon is that too often, we strive after physical health, or relational health, or emotional health, or intellectual health, but we do so without considering the state of our spiritual health, the state of our soul.  To do so means that we will never be totally satisfied; we may have some success in working out, for instance, but it may be short-lived. Our relationships may appear to strengthen, but they will crumble when put under pressure.

In order for any of these other areas to be truly healthy, our relationship with God, our spiritual health, must be at the core and must be strong. Without this, we won’t find true satisfaction or true health in any other area of our life.

For me, it means that my priority should be on listening to Christ by reading his Word, and that that should take the priority over my next workout. It means that I should pray regularly, because talking with God is more important than any other conversation I would have.. It means that when I’m faced with emotional situations, I need to strive to see it the way that Christ sees it, and realize that my trials are nothing compare to the trials that Christ went through on my behalf.

So what does this look like in  your life?