Not THAT Bad...

I courageously wade in the dangerous, pirana-filled waters of the Biblical requirement for physical body (temple) care. Pray for me!

Today, our trajectory will take a different route. This ride together will take us past a natural waypoint into a spiritual destination. I state it in this manner because a common, human tactic that most embrace is the belief that we can successfully compartmentalize our life through a personally determined morality system. Here is what I mean. A good Christian can have things in their natural life out of order, and just relegate those things into the ‘non-spiritual’ category, relieving them of the necessity to deal with them voraciously and with priority. Whereas when they know, by revelation, that God has asked them to deal with a spiritual area, they likely will fully engage because of how important the priority is.

I disagree with this philosophy… fervently.

The totality of our life, spirit, soul, and body, have an equal impact on the whole life we live. We cannot be cut into thirds and live. To separate one and remove it from the composition of our identity will inadvertently give that area over to the empowerment of our adversary who will conform it to his broken image and then use it as a weapon against the wholeness of who we should be. A house divided cannot stand. If our physical life, or our soulish life, is out of the Kingdom… then the whole is out of the Kingdom.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 BSB

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your entire spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The One who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.

This verse is one of those ‘one trick pony’ verses today. Usually, the only time this verse is referenced is with the objective of proving the ‘Three Part Being’ doctrine of our identity. But, the context and purpose of these words are of a higher objective. Paul was not only confirming our three-part existence, but, more so, was exhorting his audience to equally strive for ‘blamelessness’ in all of those areas. Far too often, we use the doctrine of the three-part person to dismiss the divine necessity to discipline our flesh with equal passion as the rest of our parts. The spirit part of us is the REALLY important part… the rest of it is kinda whatever.

In the above passage, the exhortation ends with the faithfulness of God as the completing force behind the health and prosperity of our spirit, the health and prosperity of our soul (3 John 2), AND the health and prosperity of our body. Radical. God cares about our body even… and we should as well.

For those of you who dared to read this far, you are amazing and blessed! I am going to give you a chance to get super blankety-blank at me and unplug right here… I am going to say some hard things… some unpopular things, especially for church-i-anity influenced folks. I am saying these things because I love you and I want you to prosper and be in Godly health, in ALL the areas of your life and do it for the rest of your life. Heroes do hard things… and the hard thing I am about to present you with is to HEAR a hard thing. Ready? Here we go.

The physical state of the modern Christian is mostly abysmal. We are obese, lethargic, incapacitated, handicapped (by choice), and filled with tolerated addictions like food, ‘light’ porn, entertainment, and glowing screens. This does not bless our righteous Father and the sacrifice of our loving Savior.

In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Paul writes, "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." Our bodies are the sacred vessels for the Holy Spirit and should have that same honor. Do you remember the zeal that Jesus expressed with a whip for the honor of His Father’s house? Your temple is important… really important.

The Bible teaches the importance of self-control and discipline in various areas of life, including our physical bodies. First Timothy 4:7-8, "Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come."

First Corinthians 10:31 (ESV), “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Original Sin, tied in with food (Genesis 2:16-17), the temptation of the Hebrews in the wilderness, the temptation of Jesus, and the deleterious sin of gluttony. Handling food (and drink) in a righteous way is a large and expansive part of the narrative of scripture that most modern readers reject or ignore because it is “normal” or acceptable by today’s moral standards to be overweight. So much so that we have coined terminology in adoration of it: dad bod, husky, plus size, big-n-tall, and the glorification enshrined in pop culture like “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-lot.

1 Corinthians 9 (AMPC)

24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but [only] one receives the prize? So run [your race] that you may lay hold [of the prize] and make it yours.

25 Now every athlete who goes into training conducts himself temperately and restricts himself in all things. They do it to win a wreath that will soon wither, but we [do it to receive a crown of eternal blessedness] that cannot wither.

26 Therefore I do not run uncertainly (without definite aim). I do not box like one beating the air and striking without an adversary.

27 But [like a boxer] I buffet my body [handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships] and subdue it, for fear that after proclaiming to others the Gospel and things pertaining to it, I myself should become unfit [not stand the test, be unapproved and rejected as a counterfeit].

Paul says that if he were to leave the natural part of his life undisciplined, he would become ‘unfit’. Unfit for what?

In the BSB is it stated this way: “No, I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”

He was talking about being unfit and disqualified for the Good News that he himself was preaching. The condition of our soul and body can take us off the track in the race for our divine destiny and purpose. If our soul and body are unfit, we can disqualify ourselves from the very Good News of the New Life that has been offered us by a merciful and gracious God. Notice, I said ‘disqualify ourselves’… not that God will disqualify us. If we cannot rise to the occasion of what is necessary within God’s will because of an oppressed soul or an incapacitated body, we will miss the benefits and blessings ordained, even purchased by Jesus’ precious blood, for us. 

A person who is carrying around an extra 15-20 pounds of cushion can just simply be a person who likes cookies a bit too much. Likely not a deep-seated soul issue, not necessarily a direct sin, maybe not an addiction, and probably not hindering their divine destiny and high calling of God in Christ Jesus. They just have to grunt a bit to get out of a chair. A person who is a hundred pounds overweight has a soul issue… plain and simple. A person spending two or more hours in front of a glowing screen (non-Christian type) veg-ing out regularly has a soul issue… full stop. When the body and the soul have taken over the three-part person, they have been lawfully captured in a two-against-one majority. That is where Paul is getting the ‘slave’ language from. We are to be served by our body and soul, not live TO serve them… we serve one King and that is and always will be Jesus the Christ.

It is time for the remnant believers, the authentic church, to acknowledge we have a holy requirement to discipline all of the areas of our life to bring them into the submission of Christ our Lord. Lord means Lord. Either He is Lord of ALL or He is not Lord at all. (Read that again, please.)

It has not been that long ago since humanity embraced a holistic approach to living life. Just by necessity a few hundred years ago, men would have been required to be fit because their version of fast food had fast legs and would easily evade the modern version of man.

“Healthy middle-class” - https://www.prageru.com/video/america-is-fat-but-you-dont-have-to-be

Imagine being a disciple in Jesus’ ministry:

• Would be nothing to average 15-20 miles, by foot, in shoddy sandals, carrying all the necessary provisions for possibly 50-100 people, over desert terrain, in crazy hot conditions.

• Water and food were hard-to-come-by commodities and we know that Jesus practiced a fasted lifestyle: “After fasting forty days and forty nights, He was hungry.” (Matthew 4:2)

• They would need to be ready ‘instant in season and out’ to minister to whoever about whatever situation could have stumbled upon their pathway… from Blind Bartimaeus calling out, to a dead boy in a funeral procession in Nain, to ten leapers running up on them, to a woman caught in the act of adultery being thrown in front of them.

• The constant mental pressure of knowing the religious hierarchy wanted Jesus dead, which by default meant His followers too.

• Roman oppression hung over them like an ominous dark cloud just waiting to bust into a deluge.

How would we fare under these conditions… could we even walk the twenty miles on the first day of discipleship? Could Jesus ask an American Christian to do mission work where there is no McDonald’s, 5G service, cosmetic counters, or purple-padded chairs in cool air conditioning? Is what Jesus can ask you to do limited by your health, lifestyle, or opinions?

From our personally developed version of morality, we can justify our own condition while condemning another. The preacher could be railing against sin from the pulpit under the inspiration of the Spirit for the Bride of Christ: “For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready,” (Revelation 19:7b). During that impassioned message, one of the peeps in a pew who is a hundred pounds overweight and just binge-watched a whole season on Netflix the night before could self-righteously turn to their neighbor and ask them about their porn-addiction. Being overweight… not a big deal. Watching a smidge too much Tell-A-Vision… we all do that. But having a wretched addiction! God forbid! Why the acceptable double standard?

Luke 18:9-14 BSB

To some who trusted in their own righteousness and viewed others with contempt, He also told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like the other men— swindlers, evildoers, adulterers— or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and pay tithes of all that I acquire.’

But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

My purpose today is to remove the deception that some areas of our lives matter less than others. How we conduct our spiritual life is just as important as how we conduct our soulish life, which is equally important to how we conduct our physical life. We should be a people who have submitted ourselves to the Lordship of Christ in all areas. We should also have humbly placed ourselves into a covenant community where accountability and truth are of higher value than selfish motivations or desires. Legalism is demonic, accountability is Kingdom.

I prayed and considered the sensitivity of the issues I have tenuously tiptoed into here. I know how personal these areas are for people and how deeply seated they can burrow into our psyche. When my Good Heavenly Father directly told me that I was a glutton, it was a gut punch of hard reality that I was willfully ignoring. I told myself I would ‘NEVER’ be a fat, greasy-haired preacher telling other people how to live their lives while I was visually in the sin of gluttony. Never is a God word… it makes that word really hard to eat.

It happened slowly, over the business of ministry, justified by the self-imposed opinions I used to settle my conscience. It was not ok, and I knew it. My Father loved me enough to tell me… I love you enough to say it too.

I am going to back away slowly now, so I can minimize the potential depth of the throwing knives headed my way. If this message has touched a place, a sacred place, where your Father has already been knocking, I want to be a help and not a hindrance. I will minister and shepherd you into a healthy soul and body if that is the authentic desire of your heart. That is a part of our Kingdom culture here at Beloved.

The remnant folks leading the Great Awakening will be of sound mind and body willing to go and do whatever their King asks of them. I want to be one of those people.

With GREAT love,
Steve