Archive for March, 2010

“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and BE IN HEALTH, even as thy soul prospereth.” (3 John 2)

As I study the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ earthly ministry, I find it interesting that before Jesus dealt with the spiritual needs of people, he first dealt with their physical needs. Scripture clearly indicates that Jesus’ primary purpose for coming to earth was to “Seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10) and to “. . . give himself a ransom for all” (I Timothy 2:6). It is also clear that Jesus was not solely concerned with people’s spiritual needs. He was concerned with their physical needs as well.

As a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I personally ministered solely to the spiritual needs of the people during my early ministry as a pastor. In recent years however, I have had the privilege of ministering to the complete man – spirit, soul, and body – which has been most rewarding. In fact, I feel my latter years of ministry have more mirrored the ministry of Jesus than my former years. Hallelujah Acres is a Christian ministry that ministers to the whole man!

“I pray your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Thessalonians 5:23)

Although the Christian community ministers to the spiritual part of man, which of course is of greatest importance because it determines where one will spend eternity, sadly, most in the Christian community are in great ignorance and darkness when it comes to the physical needs of man.

This was brought vividly to my attention after a dear Christian brother had been diagnosed with colon cancer a few years ago. The doctors told him his cancer was terminal and that he was going to die. When first diagnosed, both his pastor and I encouraged him to change his diet, but when he suggested a diet change to his doctor, the doctor laughed at the idea, and so he made no diet change. The doctor went further, not only telling him a diet change couldn’t help, but that his only hope for extending his life was to yield his body to surgery and chemotherapy.

So this dear brother listened to his doctors, had the surgery to remove a large section of his colon (leaving him with a bag to collect his feces), and accepted several rounds of chemotherapy. After much suffering at the hands of the medical doctors, he died. Thankfully, he knew the Lord, and was prepared spiritually for death, but physically he was only 60 years old. He should have had many years left to live and enjoy life and serve the Lord, but alas he could do neither.

Do you realize that the average Christian can sit in the average church their entire life and never hear a message from the pulpit regarding how to take care of the physical body? You know it’s true! While at the same time nothing is coming forth from the pulpit concerning how to take care of the physical part, 90% of the prayer requests in our churches are for physical problems.

It is a tragedy that God’s people have never been taught that if they neglect the physical part, it will break down and fail them. These physical breakdowns can cause problems that can affect their ability to serve the Lord, fulfill their spiritual ministry, and live a long and healthy life in God’s service!

My Personal Experience with the Physical Part

In 1976, at the age of 42, after totally saturating my life with the spiritual for the previous 20 years, I was suddenly brought to the realization that there was another part of me – a physical part. For the previous 20 years, while taking care of the spiritual part, I had almost totally neglected the physical part, and as a result was told I had colon cancer.

I guess I believed that if I took care of the spiritual part, the physical part would take care of itself. Subconsciously I believed that if I put God first, and dedicated my life to serving Him and the helping of others spiritually, God would protect me from physical harm.

How wrong I was!

God used that cancer in my life to awaken me to the importance of not only taking care of the spiritual part, but also the necessity of taking care of the physical part if I wanted to live and continue the spiritual ministry to which God had called me. Sadly, I was not alone in this neglect of the physical, as I have learned that most in the Christian community, including most preachers, are also in great ignorance, darkness, and neglect, when it comes to the physical.

Listen To What God Has To Say about the Physical Part

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world . . . “ (Romans 12:1-2a)

In this scripture, the believer is being admonished to take proper care of their physical body. Also, this scripture is telling us that we cannot take proper care of this physical body if we are “conformed to this world.” And there are other verses dealing with the physical:

“What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the holy ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price [the shed blood of Jesus]: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (I Corinthians 6:19-20)

“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile [bring harm to] the temple [physical body] of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” (I Corinthians 3:16-17)

In the above verses we learn that because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, and through our acceptance of that sacrifice, our body has literally become the temple of God. Thus we are bought with a price. Because we have been purchased by God with Jesus’ shed blood, we should glorify God in our body. And if we fail to to that and defile [bring harm to] His temple [our physical body], God will destroy it!

God Did Not Design His Human Creation to Be Sick

In Genesis 1:31, after the six days of creation had been completed, during which time God made all things – including man – we read: “And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold it was very good . . .” Friends, God made no mistakes in creation!

In the New Testament, in 3 John 2 we read: “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”

From the above verses it is evident that sickness was not (and is not) a part of God’s plan for His human creation. So, why do we humans get sick? The answer is found in Galatians 6:7: “Be not deceived, God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

Sowing and reaping is an irrefutable natural law established by God! Sowing and reaping can have many applications, but in keeping with the subject, we get sick because we are not taking proper care of our physical bodies. We get sick because we are putting things into this physical body that cause it harm. Even if we do so in ignorance, we create physical problems within our physical temples! Thus: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge . . .” (Hosea 4:6)

Christians Are Just As Sick As Non-Christians

Statistically, we find that Christians are just as sick as non-Christians, suffering the same physical breakdowns, to the same percentages, in spite of an abundance of spiritual prayers for healing.

How Do Christians Deal With Physical Problems?

Sadly, except for spiritual prayer, the Christian community deals with their physical problems the same way the non-Christian community does: they go to the same doctors, take the same toxic drugs, and allow their bodies to be burned with the same radiation and mutilated with the same surgeries in an effort to remove physical problems. This drugging, burning, and mutilating is what I call the World’s System of Health Care.

Is there a better way? Absolutely!

God Built Self- Healing Into Each of Our Bodies

Although God did not design us to get sick; God in His infinite wisdom and foreknowledge knew that we would get sick because we would not take proper care of our physical bodies. This is why He built self-healing into each of us. We clearly see this self-healing manifested when we cut ourselves: bleeding cleanses the wound, the scab protects the wound, and beneath the scab the body knits the skin back together. Finally we see the result of this self-healing when the scab falls off.

When God created those first two humans, Adam and Eve, He placed the ability to self-heal within their genetic coding. This same self-healing has passed down from generation to generation, ultimately to you and me! Built right into each one of us is the ability to heal almost every physical problem that comes our way during our entire lifetime — without drugs, radiation, or surgeries!

As we learn more about this incredible physical body temple that God has provided each of us, how can we fail to exclaim words similar to those of the Psalmist in Psalm 139:14: “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made . . .”

Nothing Can Heal the Body Except The Body Itself

My dear friend, there is not a doctor in the entire world capable of healing anyone of anything, nor is there a drug, radiation or surgery that can heal anyone of anything. And to go a step further – there is not a vitamin or mineral supplement, herbal compound, or homeopathic concoction that can heal anyone of anything. There is not even a food or glass of fresh vegetable juice, capable of healing anyone of anything. There is nothing that can be done to the outside of the body or placed into the body that can heal it.

Man has been searching for centuries (and spent untold amounts of money) seeking a cure for physical ills. In spite of all these efforts and expenditures, mankind is growing increasingly sicker while the cost of so-called health care continues to rise. Sadly, man will never find the solution to these physical ills until he realizes that the only healing that can ever take place in the body is the self-healing that God built within each one of us, and that can only manifest when we bring conditions about within the body that will allow the body to do what God designed it to do.

God Gave Adam and Eve A Diet That Produced Health

In Genesis 1:29, God gave Adam and Eve the same diet that is capable of nourishing your marvelous physical body today. This diet provides the body with the nutrients God designed it to be nourished with. As the body receives these plant nutrients, physical problems usually begin to disappear and we don’t get sick anymore.

In 1976, after having experienced numerous physical problems for the previous 42 years, culminating in colon cancer, I stopped putting into my body substances found outside God’s Genesis 1:29 garden diet. Then I started nourishing my body exclusively with the living nutrients found in garden foods, and within one year, not only was my cancer gone — and without any help from the doctors might I add — but also gone were all the other physical problems I was suffering with at the time.

The physical problems I had previously experienced were the result of eating what I call the “world’s diet” or the “Standard American (SAD) Diet.” Today, 34 years after abandoning the world’s diet and adopting God’s Genesis 1:29 Diet, I am 76 years old, am able to do anything physically I desire, and continue to enjoy excellent health.

Because of this personal experience, in 1992 my wife Rhonda and I established Hallelujah Acres, a Christian ministry that teaches health from a biblical perspective. Since establishing Hallelujah Acres, millions have adopted what we call The Hallelujah Diet (based on the God’s Genesis 1:29 diet). As a result, tens of thousands have written to tell me that after they stopped eating the world’s SAD diet and started eating The Hallelujah Diet, they recovered from over 170 different physical problems and hardly ever get sick anymore.

In the bible, in Mark 5:25-26, we find clear evidence of the medical community’s inability to bring healing to the physical body.

“And a certain woman, who had an issue of blood for twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse.”

Some 2,000 years later, we find that the world’s system of disease care has not improved (“suffered many things of many physicians”), nor has its cost (“spent all that she had”) or outcome (“was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse”).

How many more Christians will have to suffer, be sidelined, and die needlessly and prematurely at the hands of the medical community before we realize that God has not only made provision for the spiritual part of man, but also the physical part? How much longer is it going to take the Christian community to realize that there is a better way than the world’s way of dealing with physical problems, and that my dear friend, is what I call God’s Way!

This writer, along with Rhonda and our entire staff here at Hallelujah Acres are here to help you restore your body to the physical health God designed for you. We are here to help you with your spiritual needs as well, so that you can be a complete person in – “spirit, soul, and body”. My prayer for you dear reader is:

“I pray your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (I Thessalonians 5:23)