How to Know if Your Spirit is Healthy

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Is your spirit healthy?

Did you know—if your spirit is healthy you will have better physical, social, and emotional health than those who are spiritually unhealthy?

But how do you know if your spirit is healthy?

Can you know a person’s spiritual health from their:

• Church Attendance?
• Bible Study?
• Prayer Life?
• Morals?
• Compassion? Kindness? Friendliness?

A good place to start is to ask – What is my spirit?

 Your “spirit” usually refers to the deepest part of you, the part that lets you make meaning of your world. Your spirit provides you with the revealing sense of who you are, why you are here and what your purpose for living is. ~Thompson Rivers Univ.

Although I don’t disagree, I believe it lacks an important point. I believe the definition is much more simple.

Your spirit is what makes you uniquely human.

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. Genesis 1:26

Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person. Genesis 2:7

God created every other part of the universe through spoken word but for people, He slowed down. He got his hands dirty. He formed. Then He breathed life. His own life-giving breath.

For the Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. Job 33:4

It is that spirit within us that knows there is something more. The part that is restless and unsettled without a uniting relationship with the One who made it uniquely individual and knows it best.

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. Psalm 139:13–14

I think of my spirit this way…

It’s who I am. It’s the combination of unique personality, thoughts, and feelings that make me . . . well, me.

How can you and I know if our spirits are healthy?

“Spiritual wellness is when our thoughts, emotions, and actions are aligned with love, peace, compassion, joy, knowledge, freedom, appreciation, gratitude, forgiveness, passion, happiness, positive beliefs, optimism, and hope” ~Live Life Well

It sounds a lot like the Fruit of the Spirit, doesn’t it?

But the Spirit produces the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. There is no law that says these things are wrong. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their own sinful selves. They have given up their old selfish feelings and the evil things they wanted to do. We get our new life from the Spirit, so we should follow the Spirit. We must not be proud or make trouble with each other or be jealous of each other. Galatians 5:22-26

The Message ends these verses this way: “we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.”

I know from experience when I take a spiritual health evaluation if I see the opposite of love, joy, peace, patience, etc. . . . my spiritual life is not as healthy as it could be.

If things like anger, unforgiveness, selfishness, or envy are working on my mood, my emotions, and in the end my spiritual health . . . I’m in trouble and I need to do some serious repenting and ask for the Lord to help work a healing in me. 

You know, there’s something “funny” about our fallen human nature. Many of us would rather assess someone else’s spiritual health than stop and do the hard work on our own.

Oh man, that old speck and log problem…

“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye. Matthew 7:3–5

Yeah, that! Ouch!

Spiritual health assessments are a personal endeavor. Truthfully, when I worry about the spiritual health of the people around me – my own is most likely lacking the attention it needs! There’s probably a log that needs to be eliminated. 

But, you know what? It’s so worth it, this healthy spirit thing.

Don’t you want to live full of joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Imagine how those things could improve your physical, emotional, and social health.

Speaking of social health…

Next week we’re going to take a look at how the Fruit of the Spirit can bless our relationships with the people around us.

I used to think about my spiritual health as simply how my spiritual life looked. Things like church attendance, prayer, and Bible study. But it’s so much more. I can do all those things but if I’m still unforgiving, envious, joyless, and impatient . . . my spiritual health needs some work.

Because God-given spiritual fruit is supposed to pour through us and bless others.

With God’s help, we can do this. Let’s ask Him…

Father, Thank you for Your Word says we are made in Your image. You could have simply spoken us into existence like the rest of creation, but you breathed Your life-giving spirit into us. And when we sinned, You sent Jesus to heal us and Your Spirit to help us. 

It’s humbling and awesome to think of how intimately You know us and yet, with all our faults, You call us to come close. And so we come . . . broken, unhealthy, and needy. Please forgive us, heal us, and fill us with Your Spirit.

Pour into our lives the blessings of joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Help us stop worrying about the specks in the eyes around us and simply live and love and You give us opportunity. 

We surrender ourselves to You that You might make us spiritually healthy. 

Thanks and praise in Jesus. Amen. 

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