Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

"If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you."¹

Yesterday we talked about how an upset mind affects the body physically. Today we continue with the following:

Pain: the Great Motivator

Pain is not only a powerful motivator, but is also a gift of God. Pain or sickness can be a type of "red danger light" to warn us that something is amiss and needs attention. One of the tragedies with the disease of leprosy is that it causes a loss of feeling and pain is not felt. This disease does not cause the loss of limbs. It destroys the feeling in those limbs, and when a limb gets hurt, the leper, because he feels no pain, fails to protect and take care of that member. Eventually, he loses it. So, if we are going to be healthy, we need to allow some of our pains and sicknesses to motivate us to deal with the real cause of our problems, and not merely the symptoms.

Finding a Cure

According to the greatest handbook ever written on principles for daily living, the Bible, the first law of health and healing is clean livingâ€"that is, physical hygiene, sanitation, and moral living.

Over three thousand years ago Israel was a young nation and had been held captive in Egypt where there was considerable disease. When God through Moses led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, he promised them a health program yet to be equaled by modern science. God said, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, who heals you."²

Ron Vince in Channels magazine quoted the eminent English doctor, Sir William Arbuthnot Lane, who said, "The law of Moses is largely a law of good health. Its practice has made the Jews the healthiest, the most industrious, the richest among the races of mankind."³

Sir James Cantile, a famous London surgeon, once stated, "We have never yet upset one of Moses' laws in regard to hygiene, sanitation, or medical teaching. All that the scientists of today with their microscopes and textbooks did was to prove the ancient lawgiver to be right."⁴

And Dr. Paul Dudley White, the American heart specialist, said, "It is conceivable that a few years from now we medical men may repeat to the citizens of the United States the advice that Moses was asked by God to present to the children of Israel 3,000 years ago."⁵ And that is, "If you listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his eyes...."¹

To be continued ....

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, please give me a listening heart so that I will carefully hear what your Word teaches, and give me the good sense and courage to always do what is right in your eyes. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

1. Exodus 15:26 (NIV).
2. Exodus 15:26 (NIV).
3. Channels, August 1975.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

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