Transcript & Slides: Why Care for Your Body?

PDF Article

PDF Slides

Why Care for Your Body?
By David Feddes

Why care for your body? Now, if you think that's not even a question worth asking because it seems so obvious that everybody ought to care for their body, here's a little bit of information. When people go to a doctor and get a prescription, they go home, and the prescription tells them, "Now here's the medication you should take." Of those who receive a prescription from the doctor, one-third of them never bother getting the medicine that was prescribed for them. Of the two-thirds that remain, half of those don't take the medication properly after they get it. So in other words, one-third don't take it at all, one-third take it wrongly, and only about one-third of people who go to the doctor and are prescribed the medication actually do what they're supposed to do.

And this is true even when great things are at stake. People, for example, who have waited on a long waiting list for a kidney transplant—once they've received the transplant—might not take the anti-rejection medication properly. They've waited and waited for this new kidney. They're at risk of having to go back on dialysis or even dying if they don't take proper care of it, and yet even then some don't take the medication they are supposed to.

Why would that be? Well, maybe it's carelessness. Maybe people are trying to save a few dollars here or there. But I think it's more than that. When they've done studies, they found that people don't take their own medications properly, but they actually give medications to their pets more faithfully than to themselves. Why would people take better care of their pets than of their own bodies? I'm not sure I know the answer to that, but I do raise that issue because it's obvious that some of us do need some help thinking about why we should care for our body.

And we may have some selfish reasons for caring for our body—vanity, "I want to look good," or, "I'm scared to die, so I'm just going to try to keep myself alive as long as I can." We may have a variety of reasons for caring for our bodies. But here are some reasons that the Bible gives to care for your body:

Your body is a marvel of God's creation. Your body is linked with Jesus' body. If you're a Christian, your body is the Holy Spirit's temple. Your body is your offering to God. Your body is your gift to your spouse. Your body is your equipment for action. It's your tool for making a difference in the world. And how your body is doing affects everything else about you. Your physical fitness affects your total fitness in other areas of your life.

Let's look at each of these in a bit more detail.

First of all, your body is a marvel of God's creation. The Bible says God created man in his own image (Genesis 1:27). The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). God was so intimately and closely involved in the formation of the first human beings and everybody since then. "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well" (Psalm 139:14). You're God's masterpiece. You are specially created by God.

And how do you treat a masterpiece? If you have an immensely valuable work of art, do you throw mud at it? Do you cut it up? Do you treat it in bad ways? Or let's say you have a marvelously created machine. Maybe you own a car that you love, and you're proud of that car, and it's beautiful, and it's superbly engineered. Do you just go pouring sand or sugar into the gas tank or go 50,000 miles between oil changes? No. You take care of it because that thing is designed so carefully and intricately that if you treat it badly, it's not going to run right.

And the same is true of your body. You're a masterpiece, and you don't deface—you don't do vandalism against—a beautiful work of art. Your body is, in some respects, an amazing machine greater than any car certainly ever designed. And so you don't want to mess up this marvel of God's creation. And above all, it's not just the fact that it's a masterpiece or that it's a great machine. Think about the artist who made the masterpiece. Think about the engineer who designed the machine. Think about the wonderful creator and father who brought you into being. Treat his creation right. Treat your body right.

Another reason to take care of your body: your body is linked with Jesus' body. It's linked because the Word became flesh (John 1:14). Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, became a human being—has a body just like us. And so humanity is linked to the Son of God. He became one of us in order that we might become like him. And the Bible says, "He will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body" (Philippians 3:21)—like his resurrection body, his immortal body that can never die again. Jesus has an eternal bodily existence now, and he gives that to us as well.

And when your body is linked with Jesus' body, Jesus takes personally what you do to that body. One thing this means, then, is that you don't just unite your body with just anybody sexually. The Bible says, "Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body?" (1 Corinthians 6:16), because the body—you see, the body—matters. What you do with it sexually matters. And what you do with your body in terms of taking care of it and maintaining your health and your fitness and your look—these things matter because your body is linked with Jesus' body.

"By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also" (1 Corinthians 6:14). "Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?" (1 Corinthians 6:15). Think about that. Your body is linked and united to Jesus in such a manner that your body is a member of Christ himself. And so how you treat your body should reflect the way you would treat Jesus himself.

Another reason to take care of your body is that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The entire church of the Lord Jesus Christ is sometimes described as the temple of God or the temple of the Holy Spirit, but so is each individual Christian described as a temple of the Holy Spirit—and particularly your body. Do you not know, says the Bible, that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).

Your body is not just yours to do whatever you wish with. It belongs to God because Jesus purchased it with his own blood. And besides, God made it in the first place, and he did it for the purpose of making you his temple—a place where God dwells, where God is to be worshiped, where God is to be delighted in, adored, and enjoyed. And so what you're doing with your body is something you are doing to the temple of God the Holy Spirit. You should not go spray painting all over the beautiful columns of a magnificent temple. You should not be going around with an axe or a chainsaw, smashing or wrecking a temple. And that would certainly apply to our own bodies. Don't do things that are harmful to your body or that deface it or that ruin God the Holy Spirit's temple.

Your body is also an offering to God. Jesus gave his body for you. He gave his body on the cross so that he would purchase our bodies for himself. He sacrificed himself for us physically. And now the Bible says, "I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship" (Romans 12:1). It's a spiritual or reasonable act of worship not just to do something with your spirit, not just to do something with your reason or your mind, but to offer your body—pleasing to God—as a living sacrifice.

If you read some of what the Bible says in the Old Testament about the sacrifices before the time of Jesus, one thing God required of those sacrifices is that they be of the best of the crop or of the best of the animals, and as perfect as they could possibly select that sacrificial crop or that sacrificial animal that they were giving. God wanted the best. And if you're giving your body as a living sacrifice, give God the best version of your body that you can. Take care of that body so that it's the best sacrifice—the best living sacrifice—you can possibly give to the Lord.

Here's another reason to take care of your body. If you're married, your body is a gift to your spouse. If you're single but hope to be married someday, then your body also is a gift to your spouse. When you read the Song of Songs, the body is a big part of those love songs. The man says, "How beautiful you are, my darling" (Song of Songs 1:15), and he goes into all sorts of poetic details about the beauty of the different parts of the body of his wife. And she says of him, "Oh, my beloved is radiant" (Song of Songs 5:10), and she talks about his arms, his body, his legs, and admires how he's put together. So who you are in your body is a gift to your spouse.

There was an old line in the service of worship of one of the liturgies where in marriage one spouse says to the other, "With my body, I thee worship." Now it's not the literal kind of worship you give to God, but you're giving yourself fully to another person. To that person you're giving your body. Your body is a gift to your spouse. You make that promise on your wedding day. You promise not to give your body to others, and that has to do then with not committing adultery, not falling into sexual sin. But it also has something to do just with taking good care of your body.

1 Corinthians 7 says, "The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife" (1 Corinthians 7:4). So you don't need to take care of your body just out of vanity so that you can go around thinking you're better looking than anybody else. But by the same token, you do have a motivation to take good care of your body so that you remain attractive to your spouse. And different people may have different ideas of what's attractive. I'm not laying down any kind of picture of what the perfect body looks like—that's a big mistake of our society. But we do know that if we just take terrible care of our body or don't have good hygiene or let ourselves go in various ways, we're not as attractive as we could be. And so that's one more reason to take good care of your body—it's a gift to your spouse, not just in terms of attractiveness and enjoying each other sexually, although that's part of what the Bible teaches, but also you don't need to make your wife a widow sooner than she otherwise would be by taking terrible care of your own body. Or if you're a wife, you don't want to make your husband a widower sooner than he would have to be. Take good care of your body because it's part of the way you bless your spouse.

Your body is also your equipment for action. It's the equipment God has given you. You really can't have any effect on the world around you without it being a bodily effect. You can't speak even without a mouth and a throat and a tongue and lungs and air. So even things that we think aren't actions—such as speech—still involve the body very much. Even the prayers you offer are prayers that are offered in your mind—a mind that won't function without a brain—and the brain needs the rest of the body. So everything you do involves your body.

The Bible says, "Do not offer the parts of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness" (Romans 6:13). Your body and the various parts of your body are God's instruments—his tools or his weapons—that he uses in the world. It's your equipment for action to serve God. It's your equipment for action to bless your children. If God has given you children, you can do things for them with a healthy body. It's your equipment. It's a way to serve people around you, to help others. And if you infeeble your body or take terrible care of it, you're taking bad care of your equipment, and it is going to limit the effectiveness that you can have in the world.

Now this doesn't mean that somebody who is disabled therefore can't serve the Lord. The apostle Paul said, "When I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10). And he said that right after telling about having a thorn in the flesh—some affliction of his body—that God chose not to remove. So Paul had to live with that affliction of his body, and God told Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). And so Paul accepted that. He accepted that thorn in the flesh, and God used even that to make Paul strong in the spirit.

But that does not mean you go around looking for thorns to stab yourself with and to wreck your body unnecessarily. It's one thing to have your body weakening because of age or because of some affliction, and then God pouring supernatural grace upon you to overcome those weaknesses and make you even stronger. It's quite another to just physically harm yourself and limit your effectiveness and your ability to be a blessing to others. So because your body is equipment for action to serve God and to bless others, take very good care of it and offer the parts of your body as instruments of God's righteousness.

Here's another reason to take care of your body: because your body affects everything else. We look at different dimensions of human fitness—spiritual fitness, physical fitness, financial, intellectual, emotional, relational, vocational. You cannot completely separate these things from one another. We talk about them somewhat separately, but they are all interrelated. And you need to take care of your body because the physical element of your fitness has an impact on all the others.

I know of a woman who was suffering very badly from feeling like she was under attack and even feeling as though she was divided and she was hearing voices and all kinds of things. And there were some people who were in contact with her, and they said, "Oh, you've got demons. We need to have an exorcism to get rid of those demons." The woman was prescribed some medication for her thyroid by a physician, and the voices stopped. And she was in perfectly good health—and good mental health again too—because, you see, the problem in her case was not demons, was not something directly spiritual. It was a physical problem, but it was manifesting itself in other ways.

That doesn't mean there's never cases of demon possession. It does mean that sometimes what we think is spiritual is actually physical. Your bodily well-being has a huge impact on your financial fitness. If you're too sick or too weak to work, good luck getting a good income. I'm not saying that to be mean, because some people do go through terrible hard physical things that cast them into poverty—because medical care is expensive, and not being able to work is expensive. So I'm simply highlighting now the fact that your bodily fitness does have a big impact on financial fitness. So if you want to flourish financially, don't neglect your body.

Intellectual fitness—there's a number of things. I'm not going to say everything that could be said about that, but simply the fact that your mind is lodged in a brain while we're here in this life means that the brain is part of the body, and it's going to be impacted by the health and well-being of your body. For instance, I like to read. And I find sometimes that while I'm reading, I get drowsy, and I can't read anymore, and I fall asleep. Well now, how smart am I getting when I can't read a book because I can't stay awake? But some of the things that you do to take care of your body and choosing the times of day that you want to read will help your intellectual fitness. You see, you've got to pay attention to the physical in order to advance the intellectual as well.

When it comes to emotions, I'll just give you a few obvious examples. If you have a little child who is crying and throwing a fit and almost impossible to get along with, you might see that as a terrible thing about the child's emotions. "Oh, that child is way too easily angered. Oh, that child is too easily sad. Oh, I wonder if that child has terrible spiritual problems where that little one needs to yield their life to the Lord more. Otherwise, why are they so cranky?" What if they're hungry?

Sometimes a little baby who's crying needs to be nursed, and they will be as happy as can be. Other times they're tired. They need a nap or they need to go to bed for the night. And you could give them spiritual sermons on how they ought to be a better-behaved child. You could wonder about their emotional well-being, and what they really need is a good night's sleep and a nice meal—and all will be well. Because their outbursts are primarily caused by something going on physically.

And sad to say, it's not just little kids who go through that. I know I can get a little crabby if it's been too long since I've had a meal or if I didn't get enough sleep the night before. I might be more irritable and harder to get along with. And I can go through a big emotional struggle. I can go through a spiritual guilt trip that I was snapping at people and irritable. And I am responsible if I behave that way. But I can't say, "Oh, this is just a spiritual problem. It's just an emotional problem." Many times it's physical.

If you're serving the Lord in ministry and you neglect your body, it's going to weaken you spiritually. It's going to weaken you emotionally. It's going to hurt you relationally when you're interacting with others and you're not at your best. And speaking of relational—again, if you find yourself being irritable, cranky, impatient, easily depressed—and it's for physical reasons, not enough rest, not good enough nutrition—neglecting your body can harm your relationships. So pay attention to your physical fitness as you're thinking about your total fitness.

As for vocational, I've already hinted at that. It's pretty hard to work and do a good job when your body is in terrible condition, when you can't stay awake, when you're in poor health, when you have no energy. On the other hand, when you're sharp, when you're alert, when you're energetic, when your body's physically fit, then you're able to perform your tasks as well. There's a lot more that can be said about it, but I trust you get the idea: your physical fitness affects your total fitness.

And so as we think about these things, let's just summarize again. Why care for your body? Don't neglect it.

Well, your body is a marvel of God's creation—don't mess with God's masterpiece, with his wonderful engineering, in a bad way.

Your body is linked with Jesus' body—the members of your body are members of Christ himself (1 Corinthians 6:15).

Your body is the Holy Spirit's temple—take good care of that temple (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Your body is your offering to God—offer him something wonderful (Romans 12:1).

Your body is your gift to your spouse—keep it healthy and attractive (1 Corinthians 7:4).

Your body is your equipment for action—so take good care of God's tools for action (Romans 6:13).

And your body affects every aspect of your life—so make sure you're physically fit so that your total fitness can benefit from it.

When we think about caring for your health, in a future talk we're going to be thinking how to do that. I'm going to be highlighting nutrition—what you feed yourself. Exercise—being active. Rest—getting the sleep, getting the recreation you need. Caution—don't take foolish and needless risks, and be careful in important ways. Checkups—and how you interact with the medical profession.

And again, the flip side of what I've just been saying: total fitness affects your physical fitness. I've been saying, of course, that how you take care of your body affects everything else. And I'm also going to emphasize how you take care of everything else can have a huge impact on your body. For example, if you're a worrywart, if you're emotionally disturbed, it can have a very negative physical impact on you. If you're not walking with the Lord, if you're feeling guilty and unforgiven, it can harm your physical health. If your relationships are struggling, it's just a fact, for instance, that people going through divorce and after divorce often suffer physically as a result of that. It's not just that the body is separate from those things. And so we'll see that total fitness has an impact on your health.

So those are six areas we're going to look at in terms of caring for your health. And then we're also going to talk about something that you might say, "Oh, that's so superficial." We're going to talk about body language—caring for your look, your facial expression, your posture, your gestures, your hairstyle, your makeup, clothing and jewelry, things you do for body modification—tattoos or other stuff like that. You may say, "The Bible doesn't say anything about that." You might be surprised how much the Bible says about hair and facial expression and how you convey your feelings with your body, what it says about clothing and jewelry. The Bible says more about that than we might think. And besides what the Bible itself says about it, the way that we interact with others is affected by our body language. And so we're going to look at those things and think about them.

But before leaving this talk, I want to remind you of the bigger picture. We've been talking about taking good care of your body—and that's important—but God's kingdom matters the most. And there may be times when you have to risk your life, and you have to risk your health, and maybe give up your health if necessary for the sake of the gospel. So some of the things you do for God might actually be bad for your body. It was bad for your body to be a follower of Jesus in those early days because you could get yourself crucified or burned or beheaded or tortured in various ways. But they followed the Lord even at great risk to their physical health, because God comes first.

So sometimes you do need to take risks for God—but let them be risks for God, not risks for the sake of stupidity.

Here's another fact from the big picture: your body is fragile and fleeting; your resurrection body is forever. So as we talk about physical fitness, let's not become such fitness buffs that we pretend that we're going to live forever if we just exercise enough and eat right and do the other healthy things. Your body is a mist. It's here today, gone tomorrow (James 4:14). And yet that body is going to be resurrected and transformed in wonderful ways (Philippians 3:21). So take good care of the body you have now, realizing that it's not the end of the story.

Here's another thing to keep in mind: much is beyond your control. You may take great care of your body, but things happen that you had no control over. And you can't do much about that. But wisdom shows you the best available path. You take that best available path, and then you take what happens. So if something does happen—negative to your health—it was not because of your choices, but simply because that's the path that you were on and you couldn't control everything.

And having said all that—having said that God's kingdom matters most, that your body is not going to last forever until it's resurrected, that there's a lot you can't control—having said all that, your body still matters. And there are things you can do to take good care of it. So care for your health and care for your look. We'll say more about that in future talks.

  

Why Care for Your Body?
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

“Everything is permissible for me”—but not everything is beneficial.” “Everything is permissible for me”—but I will not be mastered by anything. “Food for the stomach and the stomach for food”—but God will destroy them both. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

Why care for your body?

• Your body is a marvel of God’s creation.
• Your body is linked with Jesus’ body.
• Your body is the Holy Spirit’s temple.
• Your body is your offering to God.
• Your body is your gift to your spouse.
• Your body is your equipment for action.
• Physical fitness affects total fitness.

Marvel of God’s creation

God created man in his own image… the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life (Gen 1:27; 2:7)

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. (Psalm 139:14)

Linked with Jesus’ body

The Word became flesh. (John 1:14)

He will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (Phil 3:21)

By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? (1 Corinthians 6:14-15)

Holy Spirit’s temple

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

Offering to God

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. (Romans 12:1)

Gift to your spouse

He: “How beautiful you are, my darling!”

She: “My beloved is radiant… his arms… his body… his legs.” (Song 4:1; 5:10-16)

The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:4)

Equipment for action

Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. (Romans 6:13)

Affects Total Fitness

• Spiritual
• Physical
• Financial
• Intellectual
• Emotional
• Relational
• Vocational

Why care for your body?

• Your body is a marvel of God’s creation.
• Your body is linked with Jesus’ body.
• Your body is the Holy Spirit’s temple.
• Your body is your offering to God.
• Your body is your gift to your spouse.
• Your body is your equipment for action.
• Physical fitness affects total fitness.

Physical Fitness
: Caring for your health

• Nutrition
  
• Exercise
• Rest
• Caution
• Checkups
• Total fitness
  

Body language: 
Caring for your look

• Facial expression
• Posture, gestures
• Hairstyle, makeup
• Clothing, jewelry
• Body modification

The bigger picture

• God’s kingdom matters most. Risk life and health if necessary.
• This body is fragile and fleeting. Your resurrection body is forever.
• Much is beyond your control. Wisdom shows the best available path.
• Your body matters. Care for your health and your look.