The Wellness Revelation 40-Day Journey Sample

Embrace God’s Purpose, Desire, and Design

HIS DESIRE – HOLY AND WHOLE

Once we’ve surrendered ourselves to God’s strength and power, we organically develop a thirst to maintain unbroken fellowship with Him. Because outside forces will try to pull us away from His ways, we will always need His sovereign and loving hand to guide our desires.

Until people wanting to lose weight or live healthier lives understand this, they will continue to keep the weight-loss craze in business. Another book, infomercial, or unused treadmill will find its way into their homes and onto their credit cards.

How do we know whether we desire what God wants for us? Through His Word, He tells us what He created us to be.

First, God desires us to be holy. The Hebrew word for “holy” is qadowsh, meaning “set apart.” The Greek word for “holy” is hágios, meaning “set apart from common use and dedicated to God.”

Sounds kind of snobby, huh? But being holy does not mean assuming that we are better than everyone else and should put on plastic bodysuits to keep ourselves from being soiled by others who just don’t get it.

What does it mean that we “set ourselves apart” from what the world says is right and acceptable to follow God’s will? Once God calls us, we move from belonging to this world to belonging to the Kingdom where things are done differently.

Scripture calls the process of moving toward holiness “sanctification.” When we give ourselves to God, we will be sanctified or set apart from the world's ways.

Holiness (going a different way) is a by-product of our sanctification (letting God take us the better way). We begin to reflect a life like the one Christ lived – a holy and whole life.

Is that even possible? We all come broken, not whole, into this pursuit of better health. Our minds don’t often reflect our desire to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. This brokenness is what drives health and fitness trends. Humanity is seduced into desiring the perfect body (which, by the way, does not exist) so that we may reflect the image of perfection.

Yet, the one true image of perfection is found only in God. We were made in His image, and He is perfect. He lacks nothing. Through Him, our wholeness can be restored.

Reflect:

Read Leviticus 11:44. What types of things keep you from living a holy life? What keeps you from living a whole life?