Welcome to Welling, for your spiritual health and growth. Well, it is well. Our emphasis on the word well has a starting point.
Gaius, who came to know the Lord Jesus, probably through the Ministry of John the Apostle Elder, or was discipled by the Apostle Elder, has some important indications of how wellness began. It has to do with salvation, with deliverance. For one of the meanings of the word well is this total restoration of soul that could not happen without a relationship with Lord Jesus, a mending of the soul, a remaking of the soul.
The beauty of salvation is that God knows that you need to be rescued. And then God does what he has planned to restore you, to repair you, to refresh you. I love all those “re” words, which give us another chance at life itself.
I like repairing things. I’m not very good at it, but simple things I do. I try not to throw things away. I even try to repair cheap things like ballpoint pens, because I didn’t grow up in an environment which threw things away. I believe that open holes can be mended and that broken hearts can be fixed.
Just like we are careful about not throwing things away that are precious too early, too quickly, I want to let you know that you will not be a throwaway subject, that God has made you for a purpose. And despite how unwell you feel today, He’s not going to throw you away. In fact, we should not throw ourselves away.
It just happened yesterday when I was preparing these talks, one of the most beautiful people in the world, Miss USA in 2019, 30 years old, she jumped off the 29th story of a 60 story building and took her life. Everything she had she left for her mother, who herself was a beauty queen in her state. She was the oldest one to win the Miss USA contest, so broke a record right there. She was a lawyer, JD, doctor, Cheslie Kryst. She was an MBA. Everybody clamors for a Master’s in Business.
During the World Mental Health Day, she talked about her mental health. She said, I do everything that I can to keep up my mental health. I spend time at the end of every day to decompress. I administer self-care on a regular schedule, or schedule. I keep good boundaries. I have workout schedules. My body is healthy and my mind sharp.
But here is the final Instagram message that she posted. It is a message to herself before she jumped. She said, “May this day bring you rest and peace.” What a sadness. A message to self, final self-care, may this day bring you rest in peace, and she takes her life. I so wish I had the privilege of speaking to her, that she could be delivered, she could be repaired, she could be restored, she could be rescued in spiritual cure. For that’s the first step before you work on your spiritual core in your journey, on the road to become well.
Our chief character, Gaius, commentators believe that his name, which is a Roman name, shows that he did not have much of a Christian heritage, like for example, Timothy had, mother and grandmother, and so on. He was a Roman. He came in from paganism, from a prior allegiance to another god or set of gods in idolatry. He came to the truth. That truth was so precious to him that he walked in it. He embraced it. He welcomed it.
During this time of John writing to Gaius, the Church of the Lord Jesus was still young. And as a fresh convert to the Christian faith, there was a vitality which he evidenced, he experienced. He experienced what no other offer, no other savior could give like Jesus would and could. He knew peace. He knew forgiveness. He knew hope, a supernatural peace that could not be explained by naivete. That’s why the writer says, I know your soul is already prospering. Now I hope that your external, physical, bodily, material well-being will be as good as your soul.
But I want to make another observation, because the word Gaius, or Gaius in English, is really the word rejoicing, sort of the male counterpart of the word Joy, or Joyce. Joyce is female, like my mother-in-law’s name, and she was truly joyful. Despite very difficult circumstances, she knew how to rejoice. I actually called her rejoice.
Joy, as you’ve heard me say at other times, does not depend on happenings. Happiness does. It’s of a different order, regardless of what else is happening since we cannot predict what the future is going to be, and everything can change at whim. As long as your soul is prospering already because of a relationship with the Lord Jesus, we can hope and pray and wish that everything outside can match the same prosperity of your soul.
When somebody asks you a question, you could say, well, sort of in an indecisive way, where you don’t want to commit to anything. But I want you with good confidence, because the Lord Jesus and he’s rescued you from a destiny of lostness, your soul can be said to prosper. And now, everything else can be built on the spiritual core of your soul. You can be well.