My Body

our bodies are among God’s greatest and most mysterious gifts to
us, and they are a big part of our identity.

It’s too easy to put our bodies right at the center of our live by
obsessing over feeding, adorning, pampering, and prote them.
Honoring God with our bodies is an our spiritual formation
journey. After all, God made us as whole So we can’t expect the
“inner person” to be truly transformed to the “outer person.”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20

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, for God bought you with a high price.
So you must honor God with your body. (NLT)
 "For usual human beings in the usual circumstances, their body runs their life.
Contrary to the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:25, life is, for them, not more than
food, nor the body more than clothing. As a matter of simple fact, their time and
energy is almost wholly, if not entirely, devoted to how their body looks, smells, and
feels, and to how it can be secured and used to meet ego needs such as admiration,
sexual gratification, and power over others. It is this bodily orientation of the self
that runs the human cosmos."

DALLAS WILLARD
Renovation Of The Heart
Romans 12:1-2

And so, dear brothers, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let
them be a living sacrifice, holy—the kind he can accept. When you
think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Don’t copy
the behavior and customs of this world, but be a new and different
person with a fresh newness in all you do and think. Then you will
learn from your own experience how his ways will really satisfy you.
(TLB)
Romans 6:12-13

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so

that you obey its evil desires. 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.
2 Corinthians 7:1

Since we have these promises, dear

friends, let us purify ourselves from
everything that contaminates body and
spirit, perfecting holiness out of
reverence for God.
How we can honor god with our body?
1 Corinthians 6:12-20
You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do
anything,” I must not become a slave to anything. You say, “Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.”
(This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you can’t say that our bodies were made for
sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. And God will raise us from the
dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead.
Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and
join it to a prostitute? Never! And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with
her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.” But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with
him.
1 Corinthians 6:18

Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For
sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. 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, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor
God with your body. (NLT)
As a mature and competent individual, I am responsible for
the care of my body, and it is the center of all the other
responsibilities I have. But that does not imply that I and I
alone have the right to say what is to be done with it, or in
short, that I own my body.... It is therefore God’s to do with
as he pleases, and he pleases that our body should be “a
showplace of God’s greatness” (1 Corinthians 6:20, PAR).
Christians are the last people on earth who should say, “My
body is my own, and I shall do with it what I please.”

DALLAS WILLARD
Renovation Of The Heart
GOD’S GIFTS TO THE BODY
God has given lots of good gifts to our bodies—like food and sleep. Our role is to keep our
bodies healthy and available to glorify Him by appreciating His good gifts within boundaries.
But too much of a good thing (or not enough) can be a bad thing.
ACCEPTING LIMITATIONS AND DISABILITIES
Ours is not the first generation to struggle with body issues. Even the apostle Paul struggled
with a significant physical limitation.

• 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
• Psalm 16:5-6
 "Spiritual transformation requires the transformation of the body.
The proper retraining and nurturing of the body is absolutely
essential to Christ-likeness. The body is not just a physical thing. As it
matures, it increasingly takes on the quality of “inner” life... [until]
the deeds and words of Jesus become a natural expression of who we
are. "

DALLAS WILLARD
Renovation Of The Heart
CELEBRATING TRANSFORMATION

Psalm 139:13-16
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how
well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven
together in the dark of the womb. You saw me [my unformed body— NIV] before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single
day had passed. (NLT)
practical ways to let God live in you
Intentionally release your body to God
Consider a private ceremony to dedicate your body to God, perhaps on a yearly
basis.

• Take an extended, unrushed time alone with God to quiet your soul and relax
your body.
• Meditatively pray over some Scriptures, especially about the body.
• Slowly surrender your body to God, one part at a time.
• Ask God to take charge of your body, to fill it with His life, and to use it for His
purposes.
• Get up and spend time praising God with your entire being—body, soul, spirit,
emotions, and mind.
Honor God through resting
Take the Sabbath seriously. It is God’s sacred gift to your body. When you come to the place
where you can joyously “do no work,” it will be because you can trust Him with your life enough
to take your hands off the steering wheel.

• Take an extended, unrushed time alone with God to quiet your soul and relax your body.
• Praise God for His work throughout time.
• Praise God for His work in and through you this past week.
• Praise God for His work in and through others this past week.