Deuteronomy 30:19 “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life.” This verse shows us that we have a part to play in whether or not we live a blessed life or a cursed life.
We see in Exodus 15:6 that God says health can be a blessing based on obedience - “If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
We see in Deuteronomy 28:15 God says disease can be a curse for disobedience - “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:” and the list includes plagues, consumption, fever, inflammation, etc.
Can a curse affect a Christian today?
In Galatians 3:13, Paul writes “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.” Christ died to free us from sin, not enable us to continue sinning (Romans 6:2). We don’t want to live in disobedience when Christ paid for our healing with His obedience.
Based on God’s Word, we must recognize that there can be a correlation between sin and sickness. We must do everything we can to eliminate sin and sickness from our lives.
James 5:16 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.
Psalm 38:3 Oh Lord my health is broken because of my sins.
Psalm 41:4 “Oh LORD” I prayed, “have mercy on me. Heal me, for I have sinned against you.”
But one very serious caution - when we look at sin, we should only look at ourselves, not others. Sickness can be associated with sin, but it isn’t always. We don’t want to be like Job’s friends who accused Job of sinning. They were right with what they said, but wrong when they applied it to Job. And we don’t want to be like the disciples who asked Jesus in John 9, “Who sinned this many or his parents?” Jesus said neither. It was for the glory of God.
But we do want to humbly examine ourselves to see if sin could be a spiritual root or block in our situation.
Challenge Day 2 – Take the time today to ask the Holy Spirit to show you things that need to be confessed that may be impacting your health. Whatever He shows you, confess it, repent, and change. Over the next few days, we will look at specific sins that have a huge impact on our health.