A Christian View on Fitness and Wellness
By Jennifer Humphries
1Corinthians 6:19-20 tells us “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, who you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (NIV)” As Christians we believe that our bodies belong to God and that he lives in us. It follows then that we should care for this gift we have been given.
Romans 8: 5-8 states, “For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. . . for the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace. (NASB)” We must not let ourselves be controlled by our appetites; rather we should be controlled by the Spirit. One of the evidences of God’s spirit is self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) and it definitely requires self-control to eat right and to exercise! Another evidence of lack of self-control is getting either too much or too little sleep.
If we are unable to care for ourselves, how are we, as God’s children, to do the work that he has called us to do? “We would sometimes do well to remember that our bodies belong to God as much as our souls. Many a man has been hindered from doing the work he might do because he has made himself physically unfit to do it.” (Barclay 105)
Although you should care for your body; you should not however go so far as to make your physical well-being top priority. Many people work on their physiques to have outer attractiveness. Colossians 3: 1-2 says “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. (NIV)” Although we should care for our bodies, we should not focus all of our energy on them. Instead, we should focus on God and on things in heaven. What matters most to God is what we are in our hearts, rather then how we look on the outside.
The Christian view of the body also gives us hope when you have an illness, handicap, or a birth defect. Remember Philippians 3:21 which states “Who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. (NIV)” This means that in our future, Christians will have new bodies free from all illness, handicaps and defects. Until then we remember that we are made in Gods image, and everything God makes is wonderfully made. We are to view our bodies in light of Scripture rather than by what our culture dictates.
Our bodies are a special gift to us from our creator. They are the temple of the Holy Spirit and he works through them. With them, we interact with our world and each other. Our attitude towards them must be balanced. On one hand we are to respect and care for them, but on the other, we must not be overly concerned about them.
Work Cited
NIV [New International Version] Teen Devotional Bible Edition. Zondervan, 1999
NASB [The New American Standard Bible] Side-Column Reference Edition. Holman, 1977
Barclay, William. The Gospel Of Mark. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1975
P.S. This was one of my papers that I had to write for my PSEO Fitness class.
2 comments:
Good job, Jennifer! Very well structured. :-) I just finished another essay and posted it yesterday. Have you read it yet? See you soon!
Nice job, Jeni-girl! You made a lot of good points. The one that really hit me the most was the one about not taking care of your body for earthly reasons, but keeping my focus on "above."
*This is probably the writing tutor in me kicking in, but when you use MLA parenthetical citations you should put the period after the citation. For example, if you were quoting someone you would type it like this:
Only one person told me "have a nice day" (Smith 45).
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