Practicing authentic faith is healthy. But not everything you may hear in church or a religious discussion group is health-enhancing, so you need to take it “with a great big grain of salt” or spiritual discernment. “The truth will set you free,” as Jesus said, and honoring God will bring “healing to your body and refreshment to your bones,” as Solomon said. But when what you hear increases your sense of guilt, judgment by humans, or abandonment or punishment by God, your risk of ill health, even death, might be increased.

A study of nearly 450 older hospitalized patients—most of them Christians—by Harold Koenig, M.D., and his Duke University colleagues found that feeling alienated from God, one’s religious community, or perceiving the Devil as the cause of one’s illness resulted in a 19 to 28 percent increased risk of dying during the subsequent two years. Evidently, the unresolved inner stress related to these religious convictions created a context for decline in health over time.

The practice of authentic, health-enhancing faith is not dependent on one’s denomination or membership in any religious group. It does not happen through walking the aisle in a religious service or by praying a prayer at the end of an evangelistic booklet. The life of faith is not achieved by adherence to a list of “dos and don’ts” imposed by any person or group. Instead the practice of authentic faith is, to put it very simply, the overflow of a love relationship with God that is established through trusting Christ as one’s personal Lord and Savior. This, therefore, is the first step toward a full and healthy life, because this relationship provides peace with God and peace in our hearts. As Proverbs 14:30 says, “A heart at peace gives life to the body....”

A love relationship with God also provides both the will and the ability to love and serve our fellow humans with whom we share a special sense of community in the church. The human love relationships we experience as a result encourage and empower us as we live our lives day-to-day, and further enhance our relationship with God, as the benefits go round and round.

The net result of nurturing your faith in both private and public settings will be that you simply will not be able to keep it to yourself. I don’t mean by this that all people with authentic faith become preachers, evangelists, or missionaries, only that true faith is other-directed. In other words, your concern for and involvement with others in a helping or redemptive sense will increase in a variety of ways as your faith grows. This, too, enhances your health, as we said in the chapter on helping others. Don’t worry. You don’t have to make this happen. It happens because the Spirit of God, who comes to reside within believers, is a powerful force for love, compassion, and concern, bringing refreshment to those in need. The way Jesus described it to the “woman at the well” was: “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (John 4:13-14).