Spiritual Covenant, Physical Health
(Reading time: 3 minutes)
“Jesus suffered terribly in his body that I might have wholeness in mine. So in the authority he gave me, I declare that by his wounds I have been healed and I now have supernatural physical health. Thank you, Jesus.” This is a statement or prayer for healing you can make periodically in faith to promote good health. After making this statement, address any physical ailments or problems you have. Allow me to explain.
Every human consists of three parts. Our spirits and psyches (souls) exist in the spiritual realm and will exist forever. Our bodies exist in the physical realm and are temporal. When we accepted Jesus as our Savior, we immediately became children of God and entered a covenant relationship with him, although we didn’t realize it at the time.
In that relationship, we have free access to all the covenant blessings. The Bible uses the Greek word, sozo, to describe protection and deliverance from anything that might harm us, such as physical sickness. Because sozo is a covenant blessing, we have free and immediate access to it as needed. That’s our right as children of God. It’s correct for us to say we’re healed, for example, even if we continue having physical symptoms, since we spiritually have received healing (sozo). It’s ours and we have free, legal access to it.
The issue now is causing our physical bodies to experience the full benefit of that covenant blessing. A key is aligning our thoughts with spiritual reality, which includes orienting our minds toward the spiritual realm and acting on spiritual truths even if they don’t make rational sense.
That shouldn’t be a major problem, since we already rely on physical realities most of us don’t fully understand, such as electricity. Faith may seem irrational to some, but we use faith when we sit in a chair or turn on a light switch, because we fully expect the chair to support us and the lights to shine.
So why don’t we experience physical healing that belongs to us through our spiritual covenant with God? It’s not because God’s withholding it from us. It’s true that God sometimes heals someone dramatically and suddenly to demonstrate his goodness and build people’s faith. But God’s highest priority is for us to become spiritually mature and complete like Jesus, and that’s a process in which we have an essential role. God provides everything we need, but it’s our responsibility to use what he gives us. As we do our part, Holy Spirit produces the desired results in us.
We need to build up our human spirits so we’re mature and complete, and function as God intends. We need to align our psyches with our spirits, so they support and fully cooperate with our spirits, instead of assume control as they currently do. Finally, we need to bring our bodies under control, instead of indulging their every desire. We do all of this by submitting to our loving Father – God – choosing to believe what he says and faithfully practicing spiritual disciplines. But perseverance is essential, because spiritual growth is inherently slow.
Our culture promotes physical exercise and other disciplines to care for our bodies. As Christians, we must focus on spiritual disciplines to strengthen, care for and develop our spirits, align our psyches with the spiritual realm, and bring our bodies under control. As we do, we’ll function as God intends and more fully experience all of our covenant blessings, including physical health.
Again, God has done everything he needs to do. Now it’s up to us to grow up spiritually and function as we should, which includes honoring our covenant relationship. The benefits will be far greater than we’d expect, and far better than we could imagine.
One of the blessings of our covenant with God is protection and deliverance from whatever might harm us, including physical sickness or disease. A key to experiencing physical healing is aligning our thoughts with spiritual reality, which includes acting on spiritual truths even if they don’t make rational sense.