If you are a Christian, your answer would automatically be yes. I want to be spiritually vital. When you are in a hospital, the nurse comes around several times a day to take your “vitals.” They take your heart rate, your oxygen saturation, your blood pressure, and your temperature. These are indicators of your health. These numbers can help identify potential health problems if they do not fall within a normal range. There are also tests and indicators of our spiritual vitality. God’s word will give us the ranges we need to be in, but it is up to us to take care of these ourselves. No one can make you spiritually healthy. They can lead you to the word, but they cannot cram it down your throat. You have a responsibility to become spiritually vital.
One of the first indicators of our spiritual health is our hunger for the word. Like physical food, we must consume it to grow.
When Jesus was in the wilderness and suffering the temptations from Satan, he quoted scripture.
Mathew 4:4 “But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God.”
In the Beattitudes in Matthew 5:6, Jesus said, “Blessed are the which do hunger and thirts after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” Every believer is to desire God’s word. We are to huger for it and to want to do right so badly that we crave it, like a person in a desert with no water. Peter says in I Peter 2:1-3 that when we seek to study and understand God’s word it will help us to overcome sin. Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speaking, As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby: If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” If we are to grow, we must study and seek Him. For our vital signs to be healthy, Paul says in II Timothy 2:15 that we should “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” When you study, you are not just reading a passage. You are digging it out so you can make an application.
There are all kinds of helps to do this. I use a free app called e-sword on my computer. It gives me the text in whatever version I want. I have four different ones downloaded, but what I really love is the free Strongs concordance that allows me, with one click, to see what the original word was and what it meant in either the Hebrew for the Old Testament or the Greek for the New Testament. You cannot make a correct application if you do not know what the exact word means. Some translations get close but do not convey exactly what it meant when God inspired it. Because of our English use of words and our own understanding and application, it is necessary to go back to the original. This alone will cause your vital signs to be healthier.
A second vital indication is our prayer life. God loves for us to talk to Him. When we read His word He is talking to us. He wants two-way communication. Prayer is commanded in scripture. Jesus did it daily. Early in the morning, He started His day with prayer. When He was burdened in the garden, He spent time in prayer.
In I John 5:14, we are confidently assured that He hears us. “And this is the boldness which we have toward him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” I have taught children and adults all of my adult life. It is a struggle to speak when you do not feel anyone is listening. How awesome it is that we have a God who listens to us no matter what our problem is. He hears. In I Thessalonians 5:17, we are to “pray without ceasing.” This is a mindset where our thoughts are always connected by the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us to the desires of God the Father. We can pray on our knees, in our car, in our bed, and wherever we are. God is always there, and He longs to hear from us. When we are anxious, we are to pray as in Philippians 4:16-17 “Be careful (anxious)for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” When we keep a spirit of prayer, we will have peace in our hearts. If we will be diligent in prayer and study we will have the basis of all other areas of obedience. We will know Him, and to know Him is to love Him. In John 14:15 Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms that if we love Him we will obey Him. “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
If you want to be spiritually vital, you must study, pray, and obey. There are no shortcuts to this peace and freedom. There are no generic pills that can make you what you ought to be. You must have the real deal and live in it.
I think Jesus said it all in John 15:1-9 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bears not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that bears fruit, he purges it, that it may bring forth more fruit. Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abides in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.”
