When my daughter was elementary age, her Sunday school teacher challenged the class to write a thank you note to someone who serves the church behind the scenes. She chose the church custodian, a dear friend of mine. A few days later, my friend shared what my daughter had written. She said she and her husband had found the note sweet but amusing. It read:
“Thank you for all you do. Because nobody likes a dirty church.”
You can’t argue with my daughter’s observation. Nobody does like a dirty church. And my friend did a great job keeping our church clean.
I’ve heard a lot of talk in my life about our body being a temple. And while it’s important to remember that, sometimes we get off in the ditch. Since we know we don’t like to be in a dirty church, we argue that maybe the Holy Spirit can’t work as well if the temple of our physical body isn’t up to snuff.
Why Our Physical Bodies Matter
Paul mentions the idea of our body being a temple a couple of times in 1 Corinthians. One such place is 1Corinthians 6:19–20:
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.
The context of this Scripture is sexual immorality. Paul was explaining to the church in Corinth that sex was not an isolated biological function. It affects us spiritually as well.
We of course need to be careful not to take verses out of context. But I think it’s safe to infer from this that our bodies matter. Especially in verse 12, where he states that not everything is helpful and that we shouldn’t be enslaved by anything. And also at the end of verse 13, when Paul says the body is “for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.”
But things start to go a little sideways if we start comparing an unfit body to a dirty temple and suggest that God wouldn’t want to be there.
We never have to clean ourselves up for God. God is the one who does the cleaning.
We are servants of God, and we have to surrender ourselves, body, soul, and spirit, to his will. We participate in his purposes as the hands and feet of Jesus. We can’t separate the spiritual from the physical. And how we feel affects what we are able to do.
But surrendering is a far different thing than getting yourself fixed up so the Holy Spirit isn’t distracted by the clutter.
Yes, our bodies matter to God. But that doesn’t mean we are now obligated to pursue cut arms and toned abs. It doesn’t mean we need to hurry and clean up the place so the Holy Spirit has room to work.
Our bodies matter because the Holy Spirit lives within us. Our bodies already have value. We can’t add to that by what we do. But because they have value, we can care for our bodies as an act of worship.
What True Worship Is
Webster’s defines worship as “to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion.” There are many good definitions of Christian worship, but all contain the idea that worship is a response to what God is and has done, and its purpose is to bring glory—and therefore attention—to him.
We tend to isolate the idea of worship to what we do on Sunday morning, but it is so much more than that. Worship is found in everything we do. The problem is, most of what we do has a different purpose than drawing attention to God. It’s usually about glorifying self.
When it comes to caring for our bodies, it can often be about fulfilling our own appetites. This can of course just be about gluttonous eating, but it can be so much more.
It can be about extreme overwork in order to earn recognition from our earthly employer. Or, gaining more money in order to secure what can only be found in Christ.
It can be about saying yes to every ministry opportunity, exhausting ourselves to please others.
It can be about starving ourselves to achieve a particular body shape or size.
Working hard, serving, and exercise are of course good things. Sleep, food, and physical effort are essential to living well in our human bodies. Pursuing these things within our current health limitations is a good thing. But if the object should always be to make more of Jesus, not to make more of ourselves.
The formula of the gospel is remember what Christ has done for you and respond to that. The good works, imperfect as they are, will flow from that love. We always try to turn it around, though. We are continually trying to “do more and try harder,” in efforts to win God’s favor.
You are already a temple. You are already valuable. You are already loved. You don’t have to earn that love. You couldn’t earn it, anyway. But you are now free to respond to that love.
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