“Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.”
(1 Thessalonians 5:23)
As we continue in this spiritual health blog series, and exploring how Jesus lived a wholistic, balanced life,we will next explore how He led a balanced physical life. And if He led His life balanced and wholistic, and we are to strive to model Him and His way of living, then we can use Him as our model as to how to live a balanced physical life.
The Foundation of our Physical Health
When I talk about wholistic health, I mean our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual health. Ideally, we want each of these areas of our lives to be in balance. We don’t want to just address one area of our health and lives and ignore the others as they are all connected and inter-related. If one area is out of balance – too much of something, or not enough in any particular area – it’s going to throw the other areas out of balance. For example – we might be a very spiritually healthy person, we know our Bible inside and out, go to church every Sunday, and serve the poor. But if we spend all of our time and attention on just “being spiritual” we will sooner or later throw our other areas of our health out of balance. You may have heard the saying “they are so spiritually minded they are no earthly good!” That’s a good example of being out of balance! We can’t ignore the other areas of our health without compromise. And Jesus didn’t either.
We have been exploring how Jesus lived a balanced wholistic life. Yes, He did a lot of preaching and teaching – that was His calling and His purpose – His mental health. But He also stole away to have quiet time with the Father and commune with Him and to pray – spiritual and emotional health. Today we are going to take a look at a few examples of how Jesus took care of His physical health, or simply how He naturally lived a healthy physical life.
I always say there are 5 foundational pieces to achieving and maintaining optimum physical health. These 5 areas are rest, water, exercise, good nutrition and good nerve supply. Let’s take a look at each of these and some examples of how Jesus kept Himself healthy by following these foundational principles.
Rest
Rest is needed for not only our physical bodies to rejuvenate, replenish and restore; but for our mental, emotional and spiritual needs as well. When we spend too much time in any of these other areas, we can become exhausted, or at the very least, in need of replenishment and rejuvenation. Immediately after Jesus was baptized, signifying His official anointing for ministry, He was led off into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. It was here that He fasted for 40 days, but He also was having to deal with the enemy, trying to manipulate, coerce and control Him – without fail of course. But after these two major events in Jesus’ life, He next went off to rest and spend time with His Father. He rested.
There are other times in the Bible where it mentions Jesus going off to a mountain top or away from the crowds where He could spend alone time with the Father and pray. But the Bible also says: “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35). This implies that He most likely “got up” from His bed and from sleep.
So, Jesus definitely rested and even slept. Most likely routinely. If He rested, He must have known the importance of it and therefore rested on a regular basis.
But you know what else the Bible says about Jesus and rest? He is our rest, and He is the giver of rest “come to Me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) How sweet is that?!
Water
To my knowledge there is nowhere in the Bible that specifically says Jesus drank water. Although when He spoke with the Samaritan woman at the well, He said to her “give me a drink.” Now He was actually using this statement to lead up to a teaching moment, but none the less it truly is not unrealistic to think that Jesus didn’t drink water. There are questions by Biblical scholars who ask if Jesus drank water when He talked about fasting, or when He fasted in the desert. The logic is, Jesus came to this earth to live fully as man, a human being. And there is no record of a human being living any longer than 21 days in a few rare cases without water. Most people who have gone a shorter time than this have died. The fact is humans need water.
Another point about water in the Bible and Jesus, is it was mentioned all the time – people were healed when they were dipped in water; John the Baptist used water to baptize believers. Jesus used water multiple times as teaching examples – He turned water into wine as His first miracle, when He met the woman at the well, He told her “But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” (John 4:14).
And once again, the things that we need for physical health – rest, water – Jesus actually refers to Himself as being those things like living water and rest.
I know one thing that is not in the Bible – there is nowhere in the Bible that mentions Jesus drinking soda, Gatorade or energy drinks! He also doesn’t refer to Himself as being any of these things.
Exercise
Some things should just be common sense, especially as you read the Bible in the context of the time period it was written and Jesus lived on this earth. There was no mention of anyone, including Jesus, going to the gym. But there also is nowhere except one time of Jesus using any mode of transportation in those days other than His own two feet. The only time mentioned in the Bible that He rode anywhere or on anything was when He rode on the donkey into Jerusalem.
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Good Nutrition
As I gave thought to this component to our physical health, and the times that Jesus ate, and what He ate, I realized that it wasn’t simply what Jesus ate, but when and what for. The highest priority of Jesus’ day on any given day wasn’t about what He was going to have for lunch or dinner that day, or where He was going to go to eat – or who was going to prepare it. In fact, in Matthew 6:25 Jesus says: “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing?” There is no question that when Jesus did eat it was real food, without indulgence. He was Jewish and an Old Testament teacher, including Proverbs 23:20-21 “Do not carouse with drunkards or feast with gluttons, for they are on their way to poverty, and too much sleep clothes them in rags.” Jesus lived out the Word of God, as He is the Word of God, therefore, there is no doubt he abided by Proverbs 23:20-21.
And once again, one thing I am absolute certain of – Jesus didn’t eat fast food, fried foods or packaged and processed foods – including processed sugars!
Good Nerve Supply
And finally, good nerve supply. First of all, what is it? Simply put, when the bones in our spine are misaligned, they put pressure on the spinal nerves that go out to every cell, tissue, organ and system of the body, causing a lowered state of health for us. All kinds of things can cause these misalignments, called subluxations. A chiropractor is the only professional who is trained and licensed to correct these misalignments.
Now, having said that, did Jesus have misalignments in His spine? While there is nowhere in the Bible that indicates one way or the other, most likely He did not. After all, He was still God even though He was man walking on the earth, so He was fully healthy. He also died on the cross to take our sickness, disease and infirmities, and a subluxation is an infirmity, that can cause sickness and disease. Scriptures don’t say He died on the cross to take His infirmities, sickness or disease, that would be counter-productive at least. My guess is Jesus didn’t experience subluxations.But I believe He was the first chiropractor when “He saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, ‘Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!’ And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.” (Luke 13:11-13 NLT, ESV).
So while there were no chiropractors in those days, there were people with subluxations, no doubt. And while Jesus most likely never had a misalignment in His spine, others did. And it appears to me that He just might have performed the very first chiropractic adjustment to remove nerve interference, so the person was healed and once again made well!
In Summary
We just touched on a few examples of how Jesus led a balanced physical life. He rested, He most likely drank water, He exercised by walking everywhere He ever went – and He traveled a lot of places, He ate well and while He didn’t have nerve interference, He healed at least one person who did – I doubt He would do anything that wasn’t good.
The past 3 weeks now we have talked about how Jesus led a wholistic balanced life by looking at his mental health — time management, budget, career, goal-setting and His purpose; emotional health — connection and community; and now His physical health – rest, water, exercise, good nutrition and good nerve supply. Next week we will wrap up this series on Jesus living a wholistically life by seeing how He lived His life spiritually.
In the meantime, I encourage you, start having Jesus as your role model of how to live your life wholistically and in balance.
Did You Miss the Mental Health Blog Series?
“How Committed Are You to Your Wholistic Health?”
“How Do You Know When You Get There?”
“Are You Ready for 2025?”
“How Disciplined is Your Budget?”
“Are You Burning the Candle at Both Ends?”
Pursue Your Purpose
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