The Spiritual Roots of Disease 

          Exploring the mind-body-spirit connection:  MAIN HEALING LESSON 1

This teaching on the emotional and spiritual roots of disease is just one of the 24 lessons in our workbook for personal transformation, "Matters of the Heart." All 24 lessons will be helpful to the person seeking restoration and freedom and have been posted on this web site. They are available as a complete set in our workbook which can be purchased as a download or ordered through the mail. The lessons are also available on CD and DVD as 24, 1/2 hour teachings. All scriptures are from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.
 

Introduction 

Though we begin with the body, this course is not primarily about physical health and the means to achieve it. Rather, it is about seeking emotional and spiritual health of the highest order. Finding the life that is “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3) or entering into “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21) would be excellent, Biblical ways of expressing the goal. As it happens, however, modern medical science has been showing us a connection between our emotional life and the root issues of disease that gives us a practical place to begin looking at our deeper, truer need. C. S. Lewis once wrote that pain is God’s megaphone—meaning that He gets our attention when our bodies break down. So it is that in seeking to find a remedy to our illnesses, we have been drawn into a far greater understanding of the ways in which we are actually going astray from our God. The diseases of our bodies are but reflections of the dis-ease of our so   uls! In order to recover our health, whether it is mental, emotional or physical, we will need to become well acquainted with the spiritual roots of disease. 
 

Teaching summary

Three misleading theories
Before we look at what is actually making us sick, let’s go over some cherished notions that we may still be carrying around in the back of our minds. There are three flawed theories of why we get sick. They may not be taught, but they are often caught.

1) Germ theory. As an explanation of why we get sick, this is accurate but misleading, since germs account for only part of all diseases. Nor does it tell us why we had the weakened immune system that allowed germs to get at us in the first place. Stressing the body by lack of sleep, poor nutrition, or lack of exercise can weaken the immune system, but are you aware that research has shown that just 6 minutes of a negative emotion can suppress the immune system for more than 21 hours (Berk, 2001)?

2) “Out of the blue” theory. This provides a graceful covering for us, since we are claiming to have no idea of any connection between our lifestyle and the disease—surely it is nothing we have done! It just came on us out of the blue. And yet everything on earth happens by cause and effect. The real problem with this one is that it seems to be pointing a finger at God who lives in those blue heavens. And God says He is definitely not the author of any evil.

3) Punishment theory. According to this theory we sinned, so God is punishing us. But God punished Jesus fully and completely at the cross for our sins—it would be a breach of justice for God to punish us when the penalty has already been paid in full by Another. A further problem is that it seems to suggest that God just reaches (in anger) into His bag of punishments and puts one on us without regard to the natural order.
 

The mind-body connection

The truth is that there is a natural connection between the way that we live and the diseases that come upon us.  As many as 80% of all incurable diseases have a mind-body connection.  According to one study, stress related disorders account for 75 to 90% of all visits to primary care physicians (Dr. Don Colbert, Deadly Emotions, 2003. p. 6). Consider these connections between disease and emotional stress (Deadly Emotions, front cover):

• Anger and hostility—hypertension and coronary artery disease
• Resentment, bitterness, un-forgiveness, and self-hatred—autoimmune disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and multiple sclerosis
• Anxiety—irritable bowel syndrome, panic attacks, mitral valve prolapse and heart palpitations
• Repressed anger—tension and migraine headaches, chronic back pain, TMJ and fibromyalgia

Negative emotions damage the body
When we perceive a situation to be dangerous, adrenaline and cortisol are released by our bodies to facilitate “flight or fight” responses. This is part of the General Adaptation Syndrome. The problem is that most of the “dangers” that stress us cannot be resolved by fighting or running away! Modern life seems to be characterized by a mounting sea of stressful events and daily pressures coming at people from every conceivable direction. And yet the real culprit isn’t the situations which surround us—it is the emotional reactions going off inside of us. That is why Dr. Don Colbert entitled his book on the mind-body connection Deadly Emotions—not “deadly situations.”  He writes:

No person experiences an emotion just in his “heart” or in his “mind.” Rather, a person experiences an emotion in the form of chemical reactions in the body and the brain. These chemical reactions occur at both the organ level—stomach, heart, large muscles, and so forth—and at the cellular level…The emotions that are most damaging are rage, un-forgiveness, depression, anger, worry, frustration, fear, grief, and guilt. (pp. 9, 20)

 Read more on the scientific view:
     Medical Profession Quotes
     Dangers of Excessive Stress
Read about how others found freedom:
     Testimonies of Healing
Listen to this teaching as a free MP3 download:
     Spiritual Roots of Disease Audio
Watch the teaching on our YouTube channel
     The Spiritual Roots of Disease

Negative emotions aren't just stressors
From a medical point of view all of the negative emotions are stressors to the body. It is evident how damaging they are to our physical health. But from a Christian point of view they represent something that is also very damaging to our spiritual health. They are sins--these are the true spiritual roots of disease.  Now this may seem like adding to the bad news—the negative emotions (which we don’t like feeling in the first place) are not only causing disease, but they are also sins, separating us from God! Isn’t this very bad news indeed? No, it is good news, because it shows us there is a way out, both from disease and from the entrapment of negative emotions.

Compared to the power of emotional stress as the instigator and sustainer of all the stress related disorders and diseases, nutrition, diet and exercise are distant though secondary conditons to explore and perhaps correct.  But they are usually NOT the main issue. See what the Bible has to say about Health Issues and Dietary Concerns. We are spiritual beings at the core level of our being. It is sprit first and foremost, then soul (emotions, intellect and will), and then body (as subservient to the other two) in the order of the divinely created heirarchy. That is why the spiritual roots to disease are the ones we need to pay special attention to and why it is with them that the lasting cures will come.

There is a way out
If the negative emotions, causing us so much loss of peace and joy as well as health, are actually things in our personality that God has given us and wants us to have then we are stuck with them—and the diseases they induce. But if they are sins then He has provided a way of freedom. Jesus died to free us from sin’s penalty and from its power. That way of freedom will be the subject of all of the lessons which follow. For now let us consider the negative emotions in relationship to their opposite—the peace of Christ.
 

 Freedom of choice is real

In fact we always have a choice how we will respond to life: will we go into stress, take on the negative emotions so close at hand, or will we choose to find the path of peace that comes from trusting and obeying God? God created us to live in peace with His peace. Even under the conditions of the Hebrew covenant, it was possible to live with perfect peace, but there was a condition: keeping one’s mind fixed or stayed on the Lord. How does one do that? By trusting in God.

You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Isaiah 26:3

Trusting God is the heart of the issue
Peace comes to us on the basis of our actual heart trust in God, not the doctrinal rightness of our beliefs. Our minds judge right and wrong, but it is with our hearts that we judge whom to trust. Whenever we actually release our hearts to trust God, our minds naturally become rested or stayed upon Him—until something else disturbs our rest! In the New Covenant Jesus promises us peace as well and His peace goes far beyond any of the outward things that disturb us.

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27

How does the world give us peace?
Anyone can get peace from the world in this way: I   see the problem; I go to work on it; I begin to see the thing getting better; I get my peace back. You don’t have to be a believer in anything but yourself to get peace in this way. But there are real problems with getting peace this way: I can’t always make things better so I lose even more peace in the attempt; I have to wait until things look like they are getting better before peace begins to return to me; and as soon as one trouble is fixed, I may lose peace over two more that just flared up! Jesus gives believing, trusting hearts peace at the first sign of trouble—whenever we cast our cares on Him (Psalm 55:22; Matthew 11:28-30; 1 Peter 5:7).
 
When our hearts and minds are at peace, our bodies experience peace (homeostasis) and all systems work in balance to maintain health. As Art Mathias of Wellsprings Ministries in Alaska likes to say, that since these spiritual roots of disease determine our health levels, our bodies are barometers of our true spiritual health!
 

The pathway of disease

1) Loss of health comes from loss of peace in the mind or heart (mainstream science).
2) Loss of peace comes through the entry of negative emotions (simple displacement).
3) Negative emotions draw power from unresolved issues carried from the past.
4) Unresolved issues reveal that there are broken relationships of trust and love with God, self or others—a breach of the two great (most important) commandments.

Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'” Matthew 22:37-39

5) Sin issue: Loss of peace indicates there is a sin issue to deal with (Colossians 3:15).
6) Kingdom of Darkness: Loss of peace warns us that the other kingdom is manifesting through us. Just as peace, love, joy and the other fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) manifest the life of Christ and the working of God’s kingdom through us, so too the negative emotions are actually manifesting the “emotional life” of the enemy (coming out of our carnal or fallen nature) and advancing his dark kingdom through us. Ouch!

We are paying a terrible price
for not living in the peace of Christ.
 

Interested in going deeper?

 Don't just give these truths a "head bob"!  
For further study and for help working these truths into your heart and life, see The Spiritual Roots to Disease part 2 (Head to Heart Guide 1) and "work out" with exercises, discussion questions, review of main points, digging deeper, more scriptures, model prayers, renunciations/affirmations and practical steps of life application.

Or better yet, let us minister to you in person
     --at one of our Savannah Seminars...