How many women (and some men) have we seen in Hollywood who start out beautiful and end up looking freakish? Why? They couldn’t take aging and so they went to the plastic surgeon…over and over again. What started as a nip and a tuck often ends up looking like a Halloween mask.
We get old. We sag. We wrinkle. We gain weight (that’s a choice, but it happens to some of us). We want to think we are invincible and the world is our oyster. Reality is, we are all one car wreck away from dead or ugly.
I remember seeing Steve Jobs when he was near death with cancer at such a young age. He was so frail looking and thin. He was still sharp in his mind but his body betrayed him, got sick, and died. Money and fame could do nothing to stop his body from returning to its origin; dust.
I used to teach several exercise classes a week. The women in my class all looked better than me, yet none seemed happy with their bodies. I would tell them to be amazed at their bodies, not to hate them.
So what is the purpose of these bodies that we have a love/hate relationship with. Is our whole life meant to be one diet after another trying to look good in a bathing suit?
Our bodies:
- Bring souls into existence through giving birth
- Hug people
- Smile at people
- Cry with people
- Become “one” with our spouses
- Have a mind that is more complex than any computer
- Worship God as we kneel, clasp our hands in prayer, or lift them in praise
- Have 60,000 miles of blood vessels (enough to circle the earth 2 ½ times)
We should all thank God as the Psalmist did.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
Psalm 139:14
As amazing as our bodies are, they are not the part made in the image of God. We are made in the image of a God who is invisible. Therefore, what makes each of us who we are is invisible. Our souls are who we actually are.
“We don’t have a soul. We are a soul. We happen to have a body.”
― C.S. Lewis
Our bodies are the vehicle God uses to bring His glory to the earth. Through our bodies, God makes His invisible self known in a visible way. We should care for them and love them deeply for that reason. They hold the most valuable treasure in the universe; God’s Spirit.
Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself….
1 Corinthians 6:19
God lived in a body on earth and the worst people flocked to Him!! Oh, how we have missed the goal of life on planet earth. We think we are supposed to be careful not to be seen with or associate people who are sinful. Jesus blew that theory completely to smithereens. Sinners loved Jesus and they should love us.
People did not feel judged by Jesus or they would not have come to Him. Oh, the great mystery of perfect holiness being approachable! To me, that shows the overwhelming power of LOVE. His holiness alone would have been too intimidating and frightening. Love was the dominating force of His life. It wrapped people in warmth and safety and compelled them to come.
We are made in the image of the One who is Love. That’s why love speaks to us and moves us like no other force on the planet.
People barged in on Jesus and He did not turn them away. Little children came to Him. When He saw crowds, He had compassion. He had time for people that others (including the disciples) wanted to shoo away. Roman soldiers were not afraid to flog Him and nail Him to the cross. Jesus did not threaten or intimidate.
During His time in a human body, He hung out with such a questionable crowd that He was basically accused of being a party animal. He is proof that a holy life is anything but dull.
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
Matthew 11:19
Steve Brown said “You ought to live your life with such freedom and joy that uptight Christians will doubt your salvation.”
Our souls are invisible but they are immense. God is infinite. We are made in His image so our needs are infinite. That’s why nothing can fill our souls other than God. When we fill our souls with anything else, it only grows angry and bitter.
And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?
1 Corinthians 6:13
It always amazes me when Christians look at people who have everything (beauty, money, health, etc…) and say, “I can’t understand why they aren’t happy.” An empty soul only grows worse when it has everything but what it was created for.
We came into this world naked and we will leave naked. Yet, we have a great need for stuff. We store it up to make sure we are safe and our needs are met. If you doubt it, think about Covid and toilet paper. Jesus knows it’s our nature to prepare for the future and look how He addressed it.
But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:20-21
If we took that seriously, we would all be rich and happy beyond measure. First of all, our hearts would not be so fearful and easily crushed. Second, we wouldn’t be worried about someone stealing all the worthless junk we have stored in every nook and cranny (and we even pay to store stuff because we can’t fit it in our houses or garages). Greatest of all, we could love with reckless abandon because our hearts would be in heaven also.
Christians enjoy something we can’t see; dual citizenship. We live on earth but we are also citizens of heaven. I don’t understand it. I just choose to enjoy the fact it’s true.
And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 2:6-7
Fact:
We are seated with Christ in the heavenly realms, while we also walk around on this earth. We have a body made of earth but it carries God’s Kingdom inside it.
Why?
So God can show the world the incomparable (meaning nothing compares) riches of His grace.
How is His grace expressed?
His kindness to us.
How do we show the world His kindness to us? By living in a body that manifests that truth every day to everyone.
I talk to God’s children all the time. Most do not live in this place. I think there is a simple reason. People treasure earth and the stuff here. They don’t want treasures they can’t see.
We have to beg God to help us value what is valuable. Jesus gave us low hanging fruit to pick by telling us, “For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will by no means lose his reward.” (Mark 9:41)
Jesus told us stuff like that so we would know that He is always watching what we do and is eager to store up a lot of reward for us in heaven. He longs to say, “‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” (Matthew 25:23)
God wants to share His joy with us when we come into His presence. I believe He can’t wait for the moment we see with our eyes how real the transactions we made on earth were in heaven.
The human heart in our chest will eventually grow weak and stop beating. The essence of who we are (our spiritual heart) will only grow healthier because it is “one” with perfection. The more it stays in the hand of the Great Physician, the more its healing and capacity to love will be. The more we love, the more we will want to love. It’s the addiction we were created for.
We are all consumed by so many things. Addiction is real and the numbers are staggering. There is a reason we are like that. We were created to be consumed by (or addicted to) God. If we are not consumed totally by Him, then something is consuming us that is simultaneously destroying us (guaranteed).
When our bodies and souls are consumed by God, a miracle happens. The mundane events of life are no longer drudgery. As Brother Lawrence said, “I turn my little omelet in the pan for the love of God. When I can do nothing else, it is enough to have picked up a straw for the love of God.”
I have read his little book, “The Practice of the Presence of God,” many times. His joy was so great he could hardly contain himself…every single day. It took him many years to live in that state, but he got there. To the one who loves, life is sweet.
We often focus on the cause of our unhappiness instead of turning to the fountain of joy that would fill us. Introspection will bring depression.
Stop trying to get better. For the love of God, do the only thing that matters. God gave you a body. Give it back to Him so He can use you to do more than you could ever dream.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to HIS POWER that is at work within us….
Ephesians 3:20
“The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him. By God’s help, I aim to be that man.”
~Dwight L. Moody
I aim to be that woman. I hope this lights a fire under you to do the same.
