Faith Baptist Church
4258 Botetourt Road
Fincastle, Virginia 24090
(540) 473-2325
Having a godly attitude in life has many benefits. Your outlook on life speaks volumes about your spiritual goals. It tells others you are happy to be saved. No person wants a sour grapes grouch for a friend. Nor would they want such a person to represent them. When your thoughts are refreshed and your emotions are under control so is the rest of your person, and that includes your physical health.
“Emotional feelings become our physical feelings. When in emotional duress such as when a big event is coming up or when a mate has left you or when you lose a loved one or miss out on a good job or promotion your emotions can directly affect your physical health. Self-pity can lead to depression and this will lead to stress on the body. The body cannot tell the difference between physical stress and emotional stress.
Lots of little things build up to create emotional tension which of course builds the level of our stress. Examples include everything from the drive to and from work to getting unwanted mail, to house chores undone staring at you, to your children’s problems, to conflicts with neighbors or coworkers, to hearing nothing but bad news on the television and so on. These all add up and they can cause an overload on the mind which dumps this pressure on the emotions. Emotions cannot think so they go to the body through the adrenal system and unhealthy toxins are released into the body and now the body becomes the final dumping ground.
The body reacts with illness and susceptibility to disease.
75% to 90% of all visits to primary-care physicians result from stress-related disorders.
Doctors most often immediately treat the symptom as this is what the patient wants, but what we really need is to find the problem and eliminate it. He calls this pulling the top off the dandelion instead of rooting out the dandelion. If you simply pull off the top it will soon come back.” Don Colbert, M.D.
If the believer is influenced and adheres to sound godly advice the result will be improved health and vitality. With improved thinking comes improved health. This can be a life long testimony until it is time for the Lord to start you on your way out of this life through dying grace, which is the last form of temporal imputations.
When the child of God sits under the influence of God’s wisdom as found only in his word there are many benefits. The anxieties and fears of life we have melt away under the confidence we gain in the ability of our Lord to take care of us, I Pet.5:6-7; I John 4:18.
People who have a strong sense of destiny, especially believers should know that their destiny begins and ends within the providence of the Lord, Phil.1:6.
Proper mental attitudes minus mental attitude sins lead to a more productive and healthy life. In other words to set this in the context of the effects of Bible doctrine in the souls of God’s people we should be emotionally healthy and likewise relatively physically healthy.
At least we should be only minimally affected by unhealthy emotions as we claim the promises of God by exercising the faith rest technique.
That is, if we have taken the time to learn God’s word, then apply his word to our circumstances.
A great benefit in spiritual maturity is a relaxed attitude toward life where you can think clearly without undue stress where patience marks your character.
You trust the Lord and you see him come through for you time after time. As he has come through for you in the biggest of all challenges, i.e., sin and the grave, so will he come through for you in the rest of your challenges, Rom.5:6-9; 8:35-39.
So, keep your sins confessed regularly, and carefully guard the gate of your soul. When destructive thoughts tempt you; you are aware that these destructive thoughts always have consequences to your spiritual and physical health.
When confession takes place it means we have had a change of mind.
This change of thinking is noted in Prov.13:12b as we repent then we are spiritually revived. [This spiritual revival of the soul turns off the stress factors that were brought on by negative emotions which stemmed from improper negative mental attitude thoughts, Prov.51:14.]
God created our soul to point us in his direction.
When we refuse to repent of our sins our soul suffers psychological and emotional pain. [This pain is demonstrated by continued anxiety and sadness which affects our physical health, Ps.32:3-4.] The disciplinary progression of discipline is sadness, anxiety, physical illness, and eventual death. I Cor.11:30-32.
The mature believer is a vigilant believer and improved health and vitality can be imputed as a blessing from the Lord. Of course there are those faithful saints whom the Lord may impute undeserved sufferings for a period in their lives as He has a special plan for bringing glory from their undeserved suffering. We will look at this category at a later date.