Friday, December 5, 2008

Anchor Friday - Christ-Centered


Romans 12:1(NIV)
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.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20(NIV)
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.

Philippians 3:20-21(NIV)
But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.



Joan has chosen these 3 passages from God's Word for Anchor Friday today. I really love these verses. It's so amazing how the body is such an important issue to God. God cares about our bodies and what we do with them and how we treat them.

Which is why we're doing this, all this pain and effort toward making our bodies healthy. Following Christ is not all about purely "spiritual" things. If you remember, the early church battled false teachers called gnostics who taught that all material is evil, and since our bodies are material, our bodies are evil. And if that's the case, all that really matters to God is our spirits. So, they would say, God doesn't really care what we do with our bodies, as long as we are worshiping Him with our spirit.

This is absolutely not true! Yes, of course, we worship God with our spirit but we also worship with our bodies! (Romans 12:1)

Here's what Paul has to say about our bodies in Romans 6:12-14, "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been bought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace."


This week, let us slow down, take the time to think about the choices we are making, and make a conscious effort to offer the members of our bodies as instruments of righteousness to God. Don't think about yesterday, don't think about tomorrow, or even tonight, but think about right now, and the choice you are about to make with the members of your body.

2 comments:

Joan said...

Thanks for the great post. It took me a long time to be able to look at my body in this way. One day it just clicked. My weight is the result of the sin of the flesh. God wants my worship 24/7 not just on Sundays in a church. Opened my eyese. Thanks for the encouraging message and blessings.

TreasuringChrist said...

Yes, these verses are great. I must remember that the my body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and God has entrusted me with it. I must also know that I am hurting myself when I give into these lust of the flesh.