The Total Package

Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Galatians 4:6-11
John 8:31-36


The biggest issue of this year’s presidential campaign seems to be health care … or health insurance … or the high cost of each … or whether the government should provide … or whether the free market should be allowed to correct itself … or the definition of “adequate health care” … or who is to blame for those who don’t have insurance, or who do not have access to adequate health care.

Truth be told, I’m not sure how to narrow it down, but this I do know: if we are to get into a discussion on a correcting a particular problem, regardless of the problem, the first constructive step would be to define the problem, isolate it to its most common denominator, and then build a solution from there. And as much as we would wish it otherwise, health care is a complex issue that will have no easy 1-2 solutions. Do we need health insurance, or do we need access to adequate and affordable health care? Then we must determine exactly what “adequate” means, and “affordable” is, of course, relative. In other words, what do we need at the core level?

Our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual capacities are limited by our own humanity and mortality; there is only so much we can do, and we are only going to live so long. But if we are not hitting on all cylinders we are not living up to our own God-given potential. The Declaration of Independence says we were created with “unalienable rights”; the Bible suggests we were created with inherent duties and responsibilities as well as opportunities. And these opportunities come as a result of living up to our God-given potential.

We were created in a Divine Image with, I think, a specific purpose and a particular gift. We were carefully designed with something in mind. And just as the cylinders of an engine require regular maintenance in order to operate according to their design for maximum performance, so must we undergo regular, scheduled maintenance periods in which we are renewed, refreshed, and reinvigorated. The key to good health, dear friends, is maintenance because as was stated earlier, once something goes wrong a solution may be more difficult to come by.

Defining a problem is perhaps the greatest challenge because so much can be inter-related. For instance, depression can take its toll on our physical health nearly to the point of incapacity, and clinical depression is said to be a physical problem as a chemical imbalance in the body. Perpetual physical illness and chronic pain can each take their toll on the body as well as the mind and the spirit. Stress alone can cause all kinds of problems for the human person that could perhaps be treated with medication, but the medication will only take care of the symptoms caused by stress; the source of the stress itself will still exist. So even though we’ve chosen a relatively expensive treatment program (medication AIN’T cheap!), we have yet to isolate the genuine problem.

We need only to look around and read the headlines to see all sorts of stress-induced problems. The home mortgage industry is in disarray, and the consumer credit crunch is about ready to bury us all. Just trying to keep our heads above water is a full-time job in itself. We are working ourselves to death, going nowhere, and making record time in getting there because we simply cannot be satisfied with where we are, so we strive for more. In the end, the “more” turns out to be a worldly “god”, a slave driver and task master that demands satisfaction but can never be satisfied because its appetite is insatiable. And believe me when I tell you that these “gods” are C*O*N*U*M*E*R*S; they will eat us alive, sap our spirits, take our souls because we willingly give them up, and then bury what’s left of us after we’ve been all used up. Sadder still, we will have entered into such an arrangement of our own free will, blinded by our own ambitions and selfish desires.

The foundation of our faith has been spelled out to us in Deuteronomy. Paul reiterates the theme to the Galatians, and then Jesus drives it home: in a well ordered and healthful life, something must always come first. It is not a matter of rearranging priorities according to the day’s needs or as circumstances may warrant; something must always come first consistently. The Revelation directly implicates the Church at Ephesus, but we would do well to heed the warning that we have allowed our lives, and thus our well-being, to be defined by the moment – by the “gods” of this age - rather than by Divine design and intent of faith:

“Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent, and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lamp stand from its place – unless you repent.” Revelation 2:4-5

The Holy Healthy Initiative of the Arkansas United Methodist Conference speaks of these points in reminding us first of our mission: to make disciples. In order to fulfill this mission, the Conference recognizes that we may be in danger of falling short of our calling and our mission because we are not “hitting on all cylinders”; that is to say, we are not working according to our Divine Design. The Initiative, however, is not about vanity. It is not about making ourselves look better to the opposite gender. It is about fine-tuning the engine so that we may go as needed and respond as called. To do this, all cylinders – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual – must be well maintained.

At first glance putting such an emphasis on personal care can seem too inwardly focused, a little uncomfortably selfish relative to the pain and misery with which we are surrounded unless we take such care in its proper context. Jesus often went away to be ALONE. We must surely know, just as Jesus did, that there are literally hundreds of lost souls in any given area who are depending on Christians to help them even if they may be reluctant to admit it. This does not absolve us from our mission, our ministry, our calling; it just makes it a little more challenging.

In this life, in this age, in this consumer-driven society overburdened by debt and its accompanying misery which testifies to the insatiable appetite of this greedy, worldly “god” that demands more of us than we should be willing to give, we must first return to our FIRST LOVE. This is the “something” that must always come first on our list of priorities, our list of do’s, no matter what lay ahead.

It is time to give the Lord His due. It is time to cast off the shackles that are borne of greed, ambition, and worldly desires and give back to the Lord what He asks, what He is entitled to, what He ALONE paid to redeem!

WE ARE NO LONGER SLAVES! We are sons and daughters of the Living God (Galatians 4:7)! We are the “total package” that was offered first to the world in its perfection – with God’s help, we can get it back … and we must. The world is depending on us, and the Lord is waiting patiently … for now.