Who owns your body?
Happy young family have fun on the beach by Shock (DollarPhotoClub.com)
For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body. (1 Cor 6:20)
Our permissive culture subtly deceives us is into believing that our bodies are our own. It gives us permission to use them to gain popularity, express our worst desires or further our careers. We seem foolish if we don’t. “It’s just the way of the world.” This mindset permeates into every aspect of the media, literature, conversations at work, social networking and our approach to life.
We counter this with the truth: we were bought at a price, and what a price! The crucifixes in our homes and churches remind us of what price Jesus paid for us.
He sacrificed his body and blood for our salvation. He gives us his body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist, coming to dwell intimately in our bodies.
Wake up!
When we do not treat our bodies with dignity, we do not treat with dignity the God who is within us.
Awakened to the incredible gift of the Lord living within us, we immediately begin to use our bodies to glorify God. We treat our bodies and those of others with the dignity they deserve as holy temples of God.
When we value our bodies as belonging to the Lord, we eat, exercise, work, sleep and play in balance with our spiritual priorities. Our health becomes as important as our work deadlines, more important than social networking, and a higher priority than becoming the youngest millionaire.
Reflect his character
We show the world his love for us by reflecting his character in every way, including through our body. We show it by reverencing God’s creation of our body by developing and disciplining it in the way he intends, and not abusing this gift through laziness or overwork, neglect or addiction.
The Lord gives us an earthly body and promises, through his grace and our cooperation, to form us into who he created us to be for all eternity. Because we have the most to lose and the most to gain, he hires us as good stewards of our bodies.
Our bodies are God’s temples, our earthly, yet temporary, homes. He designed them to honor him as we await our resurrection when he will change our body to be like his glorious body.
How do you counter the culture war with the truth about who owns your body?
© 2012, revised 2017, Nancy HC Ward
