A Vessel of God: Understanding the Value of Your Body
We don't know what happened during those teenage years and twenties, but I imagine he just worked and served and loved and lived his life in a strong.
Season 8, Episode 32 · A Vessel of God - Understanding the Value of Your Body
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The story behind the idea
When you understand your body and why you get to carry it, you will make much better choices with it, almost naturally. In fact, I would just say naturally by the way God has designed the relationship and the flesh. My mom was my teacher growing up, and she said when I would write a paper, I'd spend the whole first page telling you what I was going to do.
What stands out
We saw him at twelve, and then we see him again at thirty, and he doesn't come out wealthy and prosperous and above everyone else, though certainly he had every tool to accomplish that. We don't know what happened during those teenage years and twenties, but I imagine he just worked and served and loved and lived his life in a strong relationship with God. This is so interesting to me that even as Christians, we just think we need to be great here. We need to accumulate much and accomplish much and be much, but the Savior Jesus, who is everything, lived a pretty humble life and didn't seem to aspire to those things.
Why it matters
We mustn't make the break between soul or spirit and body. Like our soul and spirit must yearn for God and share the truth and be about the Lord, and our body is this separate thing that's just mainly kind of going through the motions. Similar to what we did with Jesus, these are slightly altered, but let me tell you five things that are biblically true, whether we believe them or not.
A faithful way forward
Maybe you've been through a lot and it's been really, really hard, or maybe it's been smooth sailing, but God gets the glory for your life. Acts chapter 17, when Paul was talking to those in Athens who didn't know which God they were serving, he's like, It's in him that you live and you move and you exist.
Put it into practice
I'm convinced that's not just a conversation about blatantly sinful things. It's conversations about whether we serve our bodies as the preeminent focal point of our lives or we discipline our bodies to serve the good will of God. If you use your body to do something sinful, clearly you don't want to answer to God for that. If you do not use it to carry out the very reasons it was created, you're not going to want to answer to God for that either.
Take the idea with you.
- 01What idea from this study most needs my attention right now?
- 02Where does this challenge the way I am currently thinking or living?
- 03What is one faithful step I can take this week?
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