The Benefits

1 Cor.6:¹⁹ “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.”

We will kick-off today’s devotional with our final thought from yesterday which is, you do not belong to yourself, and you need to understand that your body does not belong to you. Caring for your body, God’s temple, is a discipleship issue. God wants us to understand this, otherwise we will approach fitness from a ‘me’ perspective instead of as a worship and discipleship mind set. Which amounts to just trading sin; your body and fitness now become idols, an issue of idol worship. You go to church to worship God but by the time you get to your seat, you are depressed because no one turned to look at you.

1 Cor.6:¹⁹ “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.” (emphasis added). The body that we have is a gift. We need to have the right perspective when it comes to body matters. And with the right perspective, engaging in the physical challenge produces a lot of spiritual benefits. To have a healthy body, you need to engage in the physical challenge. Anybody that tells you that you can have a healthy body by just sitting down and not engaging in the physical challenge is lying to you. There is a physical challenge, but it gives spiritual benefits. So, the question is what spiritual benefits can I get from ensuring that my body is well taken care of as God’s instrument of worship and as my duty in discipleship?

The first spiritual benefit of engaging in the physical challenge is, it teaches you Humility. If you have to keep your body fit, really and truly, you will be humble. The second benefit is, it teaches you Faith. How? Picture this; you have gone off ice-cream and started working out, sweating like crazy. Then after one week, you climb on the scale and the scale does not even move. And for some people, the scale actually goes forward. It teaches you faith because you have to begin to see the things that be not as though they were. If you cannot see that this weight will come down, you are going to give up. Thirdly, it teaches you Perseverance.

These are huge spiritual attributes. Fourthly, it teaches you Compassion. Believe it or not, everybody that has tried to keep fit has failed at some point – everybody! So, when you see someone struggling, you are compassionate because you know how it feels. You are then able to get alongside them and help the person. But if you do not do these things, you will be robbing yourself. The reason a lot of us do not do these things is, it is easier to indulge than to be disciplined. Remember, it is the little things that no one sees that makes the big difference that everybody wants. 1 Cor.6:¹⁹ “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.” (emphasis added).

Prayer: Father, I thank You for the gift of my body, help me to honour You by consistently caring for my body, in Jesus Name. Amen!