Words Of Encouragement To Start The Day (Friday 03/11/2011)

It Is A Loan Not I Own…

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (New Living Translation)

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, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

One thing that has become a part of my Christian walk and my fellowship with God is fasting. I remember my first fast like it was yesterday, I was thirteen years old and the church I was attending had a shut in from Friday night to Sunday morning, and during that time when we were shut in we fasted, and prayed. It was something I had no clue I would be able to do, but when the Spirit of God is involved it is not cake, but it is something that can be accomplished. But as I grew and my relationship with God progressed and became deeper I learned that Fasting was not just something to do, but it was a way of life for me. I have learned that fasting is not just beneficial spiritually but it is also beneficial for our bodies. It detoxes the body and it is a method that keeps disease, illness and weight down., while it has the ability to draw us closer to God and detoxes our spirit and cleanse our mind and soul.
There are so many of us that are not caring for our bodies in so many different ways. We are overeating, and not resting. We are not exercising, and we have entirely too much stress. For others we are laying down with anybody that is not ordained to be our covenant partner, not knowing who they have been with and what they may be carrying. We are allowing people to use God’s body for whatever they desire without thought for who’s body it really is. For others still we are abusing drugs, whether prescription or street, and over indulging regularly with alcohol. Some are burning out our lungs and cutting years off of lives and taking time away from the families that God has blessed us with, by smoking. Many of us are not caring for ourselves at all, we have given up our responsibilities of caring for the beautiful temple that God has entrusted us with. If for one minute we realized who this body that we live in really belongs to and who is watching over us as we are supposed to be taking care of it, we would do a whole bunch better. We would not let every and anybody occupy the most private places that are the body. We would probably take care in what we eat and how we treat this temple. Our body is supposed to be a vessel of honor, a vessel that brings glory to God and offers praise to Him. But instead we tear it down, treat it with little thought and we have laid claim to what DOES NOT really belong to us.
What have you been doing with the temple that God has given you? Do you care for it, feed it well, and purge it of impurities? Are we keeping God’ house well? Many of us first must retrain ourselves to understand that this body and this life is not our own, but truly it does belong to God to worship Him alone. We must purify not only our spirits but our minds and bodies. It is God’s house, it is the place that the Holy Spirit should be able to abide, but if we have decide to take it and use it as our own with no regard for God, His word and how His temple should be taken care of, we will end up misusing God’s temple and in some cases shortening our lives or causing preventable illnesses or sickness to come upon us. Honor God’s temple, submit it to Him, in prayer fasting, praise and worship, but also, submit to caring for every area of who we are, mentally, physically and emotionally so that God can abide in a place that has been kept as a vessel of honor!