How to Renew Your Youth

One of the most important things to be considered when choosing a job is the benefits offered. Employers talk about fringe benefits, health benefits, dental benefits, maternity benefits, travel benefits, and others. A good question to ask, whether you’re applying for a job or maybe even considering an insurance policy, is, “What are the benefits?”I like this definition for benefit: anything contributing to an improvement in condition. A benefit should improve our condition! That’s why we like all those benefits—because they make things better for us.Do you know that God has benefits for His children? He does! They’re benefits that really improve our condition. Psalm 68:19 says, “Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits....” Two of those benefits are listed in Psalm 103:2-3: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases.” Aren’t those two wonderful benefits? I don’t know of any employer who offers benefits like those!Would you ever work for someone and not accept their benefits? That wouldn’t be very smart, would it? We’d never consider doing something like that in the natural. But I want you to know, there are many people who refuse God’s benefits!People say to me, “I don’t believe it is God’s will to heal everyone,” or, “I don’t believe this is the dispensation for healing.”

If you’re a child of God, one of the benefits is healing for your physical body.

“...forget not all his benefits...who healeth all thy diseases.”Human nature is funny to me. In the days that Jesus walked upon the earth, the Pharisees didn’t become upset over His healing of the sick; they became upset about His forgiveness of sins. In our day it’s just the opposite! People don’t become upset when you say that Jesus forgives sins, but mention that Jesus heals sickness, and they really get uptight. Actually, it’s the same old enemy, fighting against the full message, the entire Good News, of what Jesus wants to do for mankind. God wants to forgive us of our sins, thus allowing Him to give us a new life and nature; and He also wants to heal our physical body. Don’t forget all His benefits!Psalm 103:3 is very revealing. It shows how forgiveness and healing go hand in hand: “...Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases.” They shouldn’t be separated!In the New Testament, the Greek word SOZO is translated save and heal. In Mark 5:23 Jairus asked Jesus to lay hands on his sick daughter, “That she may be healed.” And in Acts 2:47 it is recorded that “...the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” SOZO is the Greek word used in both verses. It is used interchangeably to mean save or heal. Since we know it is God’s will to forgive sins and save, we must also accept the fact that it is His will to physically heal and make whole.Healing is not something new. God’s healing begins in the Old Testament and flows throughout the New Testament. It continues to flow today! I always take the overall view of the Bible on any topic. Some people say that they just like to study the New Testament, and some people like to study the Old Testament. I like to study both because then I think I get the full message of what the Lord is trying to say to me.

Full of the Lamb

Healing begins to flow in the Old Testament in Exodus 12 in the account of the Passover lamb. The whole family ate of the lamb, and the Bible tells us that when the destroyer came, he passed over the households where the blood of the lamb was seen on the door posts, where the people had partaken of the lamb.The blood on the door posts saved the people from the destroyer. After eating the lamb, the Bible says they left Egypt in great physical strength and with good health. (Psalm 105:37.) God took away sickness from the midst of them. (Exodus 23:25.)

Why did they not have any sickness? Because they were full of lamb.

When you are full of the Lamb, I believe you receive strength and health.They ate of that lamb, and there was no sickness in their midst. The Bible talks of elderly people who marched out of Egypt in great strength and divine health. Partaking of the lamb was not only for their forgiveness, it was not only to protect them from the destroyer, but it was also to give them strength and health.Look to Jesus as your Healer, but also look to Him as your strength—physical strength. Joel 3:10 says, “...let the weak say, I am strong.” And David, in Psalm 29:1, says, “The Lord will give strength unto his people.” We have begun to see the unfolding of it. God saved His people from the destroyer (the devil) and gave them physical health and strength.

Daily Prescription

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagles” (Psalm 103:2-5).You don’t have renewed youth unless you have good things in your mouth. If you murmur, you are going to be sick and cut short your life span, and you will be weak while you are alive. But if you speak good things (who Christ is, what He’s done) the benefits are that He forgives your iniquities, He heals you of disease, He redeems your life, He crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies, He satisfies you with good things, and He renews your youth. Those are the benefits of Jesus! Don’t neglect any of them. Don’t say, “Well, He forgave me of my sins—that’s enough.” Take them all. They’re all your benefits. Step up for every one of them!“My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh” (Proverbs 4:20-22).God has given us the Word to bring life and to bring health.

We have a heavenly prescription for good health!

God said attend to the Word by listening to it (which implies obeying it), reading it, and meditating on it. God is always wanting to improve your condition by giving you health for all your flesh.If you are not in the Word every day, if you are not confessing the Word, I don’t believe that you have that health flowing through you all the time. Jesus said, “My words are spirit and they are life.” If you are not using the Word, then I do not believe that you have that life flowing in you all the time. I think that is one reason why Christians decay and fall apart, because they haven’t kept the life principle of the Word in them all the time.Have you noticed that sometimes when you get up in the morning the devil really hits you? Maybe you had a bad dream, or things were not going very well, and the enemy talks to you and says, This day is going to be a drag. It’s going to be terrible. You’ve got all these things to do, and everything is falling apart around you.When that happens, I pray and go through the Scriptures that I’m confessing that day. After I’m through confessing the Word, there is something of life that begins to go around inside of me. Then I think, This isn’t a bad day. This is the best day of my life! The Word has brought life into the situation. That’s a wonderful principle, and we need to exercise it every single day.