No matter how health-conscious men and women may choose to be, the Scriptures make it clear that no one can escape the reality of sickness and disease in this fallen world. We read about King Asa: “In his old age he was diseased in his feet”…“and his disease became severe. Yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord, but sought help from physicians” (1 Kings 15:23; 2 Chron. 16:12). This isn’t teaching us that we should avoid medicine or homeopathic treatment. Neither is it teaching us that “if we just have enough faith God will heal us.” Rather, it is teaching that the use of secondary means for healing is in vain if we are not trusting the Lord.

Marathons, mud runs, CrossFit, Yoga, diets, non-GMO and gluten-free foods, Christian financial programs, anti-vaccination, and homeschooling have—each in their own way—taken over the driver’s seat of the lives of so many in the church. While all of these things in and of themselves may be good things and have their proper place in a believer’s life, they often hold too prominent a place.

It is fairly easily to gauge whether we have given these things too prominent a place in our hearts and lives; we can be sure that we have when they become the overwhelming subject of conversation we have at church, when we get together with others, and when we consider what we spend our time reading or writing on social media. After all, Jesus taught us that we speak most of what our hearts value most (Luke 6:45). So, what do these things—that seem so completely unassociated with one another—have in common? They can all be ways that we try to control our lives in order to escape the misery that is the effect of the Fall.

“The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.” So wrote the members of the Westminster Assembly in Q. 17 of the Shorter Catechism. Everything negative in this life falls into one of these two categories—namely, sin and misery. The catechism goes on to explain the estate of misery when it says,

All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever.

Sin and misery are the all-encompassing and inescapable realities of this life in this fallen world. Christ came into the world to redeem us from our sin and misery and to give us eternal holiness and happiness.

While Jesus bore the curse in our place, took the guilt and power of our sin upon himself at Calvary, and reconciled us to God (thereby, definitively dealing with our sin), the misery that came into the world on account of the Fall remains until the resurrection. We are all subject—no matter what physical, dietary, monetary, medical, and educational decisions that we make—to “all miseries in this life, to death itself.”

The Scriptures actually have quite a lot to say about the things that we foolishly trust in order to escape the misery of life. For instance, the apostle Paul explained to Timothy,

For while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. (1 Tim. 4:8)

All forms of exercise may “profit a little”; however, they are not paramount in the life of the believer. The pursuit of “godliness” in light of “the world to come” must be of chief importance.

Concerning foods, Jesus himself made the audacious statement (i.e., audacious in light of the temporary dietary restrictions of the Old Covenant era),

“It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” (Matt. 15:11)

The apostle Paul followed this with a warning about the danger of falling into the false religion of dietary asceticism when he wrote,

If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? (Col. 2:20-22)

The danger of being susceptible to these things is that they have “an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body”; however, when considered spiritually, “they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh” (Col. 2:23).

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