Joyce Meyer - How Does Eating Healthy and Exercise Affect My Spiritual Health? (08/18/2019)
Joyce Meyer teaches from 1 Thessalonians 5:23 that God wants to sanctify us completely—spirit, soul, and body—and that neglecting our physical health affects our spiritual life and ability to fulfill God's call. She shares how praying for more energy led her to start walking, emphasizing we often must do our part instead of waiting for God to "zap" us. In the second part, she declares Jesus heals everywhere we hurt—mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually—and prays powerfully for breakthrough, healing, and salvation in the service.
God Sanctifies the Whole Person
Open up your Bible to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 23. Father, we thank You for the Word today and just need a lot of grace today on me as a speaker and on those who are listening. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Jesus didn’t just come for a part of us. He came to restore the whole entire being. And in 1 Thessalonians 5:23, it says, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you through and through—separate you from profane things, make you pure and holy, consecrated to God. And may your spirit and your soul and your body—please notice: your spirit, your soul, and your body—be preserved sound and complete and found blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Your Body Affects Your Spiritual Life
Now, I think a lot of times we think that our bodies are just ours to do whatever we want with. And we just think we can abuse them and mistreat them and do whatever we want to do, and it just doesn’t matter. But I want to tell you that it does matter.
When you don’t feel good, you’re grouchy. When you don’t feel good, it’s easier to get angry. It’s harder to pray. It’s harder to hear from God. So to think that your body doesn’t affect your spiritual life is totally wrong.
Because I can tell you the truth: if you feel lousy all the time, you are probably not going to end up doing all that God wants you to do with and in and through your life.
God Often Gives Us Something to Do
You say, well, I don’t feel good, sister, and I’m praying for God to heal me. Well, you know what I’ve found? I mean, I have seen this so shockingly in the last year. A lot of times when we pray for God to do something or to fix something, He gives us something to do. But we miss that part. We want God to do everything for us.
I started praying in January—I wrote it in my journal, January of 2016—so fifteen months ago. And I wrote in my journal, “God, I’m just too tired. I need more energy.”
Let me tell you something. It takes a lot of energy to do what I’m doing up here. You may not think that, but it does. And to do the study, to do the travel—and I’m not twenty-five anymore—so, you know, the older you get, you have to take better care of yourself.
Taking Action for More Energy
And so I said, “God, please, I need more energy.” Well, shortly after that, I got a desire to start walking for exercise. Well, in the last six months, I walked 950 miles. Now, yeah—and hey, ladies, I lost seventeen pounds doing it, so that’s not bad, isn’t it?
You’d be surprised what a good walk will do for you. And it’s a great time to pray, to be out by myself. Now, it takes me an hour and a half, but it’s an investment in my future. It’s an investment in the call of God on my life.
I feel so much better than I did before, but God didn’t just zap me with energy. Come on, you’ve got to get this. If you don’t, you’re going to be sitting around praying for stuff your whole life that God is just not going to do if you don’t do your part.
Young People: Invest in Future Health
And you know what? We’ve got lots of beautiful young people here today, and yeah, you probably feel pretty good, but I want to tell you something that you may not have come to grips with yet: you will get older. Every year that passes by, you will get older.
And maybe you’re twenty-five today and you think, I don’t want to hear about how to take care of myself. I get three hours sleep and I feel all I need. Well… Oh, yeah, I live on potato chips and soda pop. I’m cool. I feel good, you know. And you’re checking all day on your machines and doing all your stuff.
But let me tell you something: you are spending tomorrow’s health. Did you hear what I said? You’re spending tomorrow’s health. You’re robbing from tomorrow what you won’t have when you get older, and then you’ll say, “I wish I would have,” but then it’ll be too late.
Okay, I prayed a lot for today.
Many Are Hurting Tonight
You know, when you look around the building this size and we’re all singing and worshiping and people over in the overflows, but that does not mean that there are not people here that are hurting. And some people that are probably hurting really bad.
Maybe you came here tonight saying, “God, if You don’t do something, I don’t know if I can go on.” Or maybe you came here tonight and don’t even have a personal relationship with God through Christ, but somebody encouraged you: “Come to church with me. Maybe it will help.”
Healing Everywhere You Hurt
You may be hurting mentally. You may be addicted to worry. You may have children that are in trouble. You may be hurting emotionally. Maybe you’ve been abandoned or betrayed or abused. Maybe you’re just disappointed. Maybe you’re just disappointed with life or disappointed with some people.
Maybe you’re hurting physically. Maybe you’re sick. It is appalling to me how many people—how many of God’s people—are sick and have disease and pain in their body.
And maybe you’re hurting spiritually tonight. And to be honest, that’s the worst. Because when you’re really healthy spiritually, it seems like you can deal with the rest of it a whole lot better. The Bible says that a strong spirit of a man sustains him in bodily pain and trouble.
Spiritual Weakness and Separation
So maybe there’s people here tonight that are spiritually weak. You don’t study the Word enough, or you haven’t spent the right amount of time with God, or you’ve been born again but you’ve been separated from God for some reason—certainly not His fault.
Or maybe you’ve never received Christ as your Savior. And if that’s the case, then we’re going to really just ask you not to leave here tonight until you stay and pray with us. And, you know, what is there out there besides God? I don’t even know.
I mean, I just… you know, I think a lot of people think, well, if I choose to serve God, then I’m going to have all these rules and regulations and… I’ll tell you what, God is so much fun.
Relationship, Not Religion
And I’m not talking about religion—I’m talking to you about a relationship with God. And if you think that hanging out with God just means you’re never going to have any fun, then let me tell you something: hangovers are not fun. Drug addiction is not fun. Divorce is not fun. Amen?
And so there are going to be some things that you’re going to learn in the Bible that you shouldn’t do, but every one of them are things that make you miserable anyway, so I don’t know why we’d have a problem with giving that up.
But here’s the thing I want to say, and I want you to listen to me. I went to church for many years and I believed I was going to go to heaven when I died, but I had no clue about the amazing work that God wanted to do in my life before I got to heaven—while we’re here. He wants to do good things for us and in us.
Jesus Heals Everywhere You Hurt
And I just want to tell you that Jesus can heal you everywhere you hurt. Everywhere.
So this is like one big giant Holy Ghost hospital here tonight. Amen? And His medicine is the Word. And the Holy Spirit is going to watch over the surgery. And everything is going to be good.
But I want to pray for you. And when somebody offers to pray for you—when I pray, I’m not messing around. I’m not just trying to take up time in a service. I’m not just trying to appear spiritual. I believe that great things happen when we pray.
Powerful Prayer for Healing
So I’m going to pray. And I want you to pay attention, be in agreement, and receive and believe. Amen?
Father, we come to You in that wonderful, mighty, powerful name of Jesus. And I know that You’re here tonight. I sense Your presence. Your anointing is filling the place. And it’s the anointing that destroys yokes of bondage. Thank You for the wonderful worship that we enjoyed tonight. And thank You for bringing us all together like this in Your house. And Lord, You already know the name of every person here. You know their situation. You know their circumstance. You know their pain. And You are the only one that knows how to fix it. The only one. I pray that You would put the right words in my mouth tonight. But right now, I’m asking You to break bondages off of people. To give hopeless people hope. And to get disappointed people reappointed—going in the right direction. I pray that lost souls would be saved tonight. That people would be filled with the Spirit—baptized in the Holy Ghost. And I pray that You would heal people physically. We rebuke disease in Jesus’ name. And I say, be healed—healed of all your infirmities—in the name of Jesus. And I thank You, Lord, for lifting those burdens of worry off of people and for touching people in the depths of their brokenness and healing their wounded hearts and emotions. Now, Father, we are expecting. We are expecting. Good things are going to happen in this place tonight. In Jesus’ name.
All right. Now let’s act like we believe it.