Honoring God with Our Bodies

I feel I need to give a brief introduction to this topic and state some assumptions.  First off, I am a Christian and a CrossFitter.  I think the subject of Christianity would apply to all sports in general but since my interest lies in CrossFit, that's which sport I specifically mention and refer to in this article.  I strongly believe that CrossFit is superior to any other fitness program out there.  Secondly, I am assuming I'm preaching to the choir.  Meaning, I am making an argument that physical fitness matters to God to other Believers.  I am hoping that this is a persuasive yet inspiring article to Christians to get fit!  I am not trying to persuade non-Christians to become Christians or saying that CrossFit is a Christian-only sport.  So basically if you are an evangelical Atheist you will LOVE this article.  (hee hee hee)  Third, because I am a born-again Christian my belief system is built and based on the validity, integrity, and authority of the Bible as the spoken Word of God.  Now you as the reader know where my world view is coming from.    As always, I appreciate your time in reading.  I hope you can be encouraged and blessed in some way!   ~Aimee

"You're beautiful the way you are."

"Accept yourself, love yourself."

"God loves you just the way you are, you don't need to worry about your weight."

I've heard Christians make all of these comments and many more to other Christians.  Seriously people?  This is yet another area of modern Christianity that is not based on the Bible.  God commands us to love each other (John 15:17) and even do everything in love (1 Corinthians 16:14). He also commands  us to live in truth (James 1:18), speak the truth (Zechariah 8:16) , stay away from lies (Proverbs 11:3), and seek the truth (John 14:6).  The Bible also tells us that our bodies are to be treated like God's temple; or in other words His house and His home (1 Corinthians 6:19).  While it’s true that God loves us sinners unconditionally just the way we are (Romans 5:8), it’s also true that He loves us too much to leave us that way (1 Corinthians 5:7 & Romans 12:1-2).

I think every person who claims to be a Christian would completely agree with me on all these points. Then why do the same people make comments like the ones I mentioned above that contradict these verses?  I believe it's because the average Christian does not read God's word enough, pastors do not teach certain messages in the Bible, and therefore non-Christian ideas and principles are creeping in the minds and hearts of Believers.

The Bible commands us to speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15 & 1 Corinthians 13:1-13).    Often times people don't want to hear the truth.  Is it loving to keep the truth from people or to help them believe a lie?  Is it loving to encourage a fellow believer to sin?  Yes, I said, it; sin?   Let's get down to the nitty-gritty of what I'm talking about.

First, let me be clear about what I’m not talking about.  I am not talking about external beauty.  I’m talking about our health and fitness.  I’m talking about how we treat our bodies.  Our bodies do not belong to us; they belong to God (1 Cor. 6:19-20).  But we are stewards of our bodies.  Are we – as we are supposed to be – in charge of our bodies?  Or are we slaves to our bodies’ whims (I don’t feel like exercising.  I feel like eating a donut, instead of an omelet)?

In case you’re wondering, God does care about how we treat our bodies.  He commands us to honor Him with our bodies (1 Cor. 6:20).  Do we honor Him with our bodies if we are 200 pounds overweight?  Do we honor him if we are socially accepted as "skinny" but we constantly eat junk food and are so weak we can't lift a bag of dog food?  He does care.   God commands us to be self controlled (Galatians 5:22-23) and to not give into gluttony (Proverbs 23).  Pastors don't like to preach messages about gluttony because people will get mad.  People get mad because they don't want to change their lifestyles or feel uncomfortable when they go to church.  I get that; but we need to not cherry-pick the Word of God or only apply it to certain topics.  For example, I've heard sermons about self control in regards to almost every topic; sex, internet, television, video games, alcohol, etc. etc. but not once, ever, about food.  Self control applies to food and exercise as much as it does to all those other areas.

The Bible rarely mentions exercise but think about what a woman's life was like back then. She was up before sunrise washing, scrubbing, cooking, lifting, carrying water, all physical work. She didn't need to join a gym because she worked like a dog all day.

Consider the story of when Isaac was ready for a wife (refer to Genesis 24 for complete story). Isaac and his family were living in Canaan (specifically Shechem) which is now the modern day Palestinian city called Nablus.  Abraham didn't want Isaac to marry a woman who worshiped pagan gods, like the local girls, so he sent his servant, Eliezer, to look for a wife for Issac from their homeland called Ur Kasdim.  Ur Kasdim was about 500 miles away.  Of course the common mode of travel was by camel.  When Eliezer reached Ur Kasdim  he prayed he would recognize the wife for Issac because she would offer to water the camels.  Eliezer had about 10 camels with him.  Of course, Rebecca offers him a drink and to water his camels.

Most wells back then were a type of cistern, and drawing water was women’s work.   She had to physically walk down stairs into the well, draw water to fill her huge clay jar, and walk back up the cistern with it.  She typically carried these huge jugs or jars on her head or shoulders and they weighed about 50 pounds or more when full.  So in the story it was no small feat for Rebecca to water Eliezer's camels.  He had 10 camels and a thirsty camel can drink up to 30 gallons of water in one sitting.  That means Rebecca carried about 300 gallons of water (2,504 lbs, not counting the jug!)  up from the well into the trough.  Do you think she was a frail, skinny thing; or 100 pounds overweight?  Probably not.

God did not design women to be weak.  He even tells us that strength is an ideal feminine quality (Prov. 31:17).

Until recently, our grandmothers’ daily chores were equally physically demanding, but our modern life in American and Europe  is not like this anymore.  The vast majority of jobs require us sitting in front of a computer all day.  We also have machines to do almost everything for us.  Add that to the way a typical American eats; processed food, high amounts of sugar and grains and you have the perfect combination of gaining excess body fat and causing inflammation; inflammation which is the true cause of heart disease, not cholesterol.  My point is that we need to pay special attention to diet and exercise even more now than back in Biblical times.

God did design us all individually.  We are all built differently; heights, weights, shapes, sizes, and colors.  God does love us the way we are.  Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates his own love fur us in this:  While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." God does love us, no matter what we look like or what size we are. Whether we struggle with anorexia or are morbidly obese.  The Bible also says in Romans 8:38-39 that nothing can separate us from the love of God! Amen to that!  That is wonderful news.  However, these verses don't say anything about God wanting us to stay the way we are or that he's specifically happy with our choices.  So is it true that "You're beautiful the way you are?"  Well, God does love us regardless of our appearance or sin in our lives but that says nothing about what God thinks about how we treat His temple.  God loves us even when we disobey Him and sin against Him by dishonoring his temple.

The next logical question is why does God care?  It's just like the rules my husband and I set for our kids; they are for their own good.  We don't let our kids play in the street because they could get hit by a car.  We don't let them eat ice cream for dinner because it's not good for them.  We make them brush their teeth to keep them clean and healthy.  God's rules for His children, us, are no different.  We will live longer and happier lives if we are fit.  We will not be crippled old ladies. We'll be able to do more activities with our great grandchildren.  Limiting the amounts of sugar and simple carbohydrate is good for us.  When we use self control to get out of bed to make it to the gym before work, it's for our own good.  God is pleased when we honor  Him with our bodies.  It helps develop His character in us.  Diet and exercise are physical things but they quickly turn into affecting the mind and spirit as well.

That's why we feel more confident after working out.  We feel proud of ourselves.  We feel empowered.  I don't believe any of that is just coincidence.  God even designed our bodies to release endorphins while working out; that was pretty cool of Him I think.

"Accept yourself, love yourself".  Like all effective lies there is a grain of truth in it.  We do have to accept things about ourselves that we don't like; maybe it's your nose, your skin, your curly hair.  Maybe you hate your hips or wish you were taller; we all have things we wish we could change. Some things we do just have to accept.  I will never be taller.  In fact, chances are I might be getting shorter over the years. I can't possibly change that, I just have to accept it.  But we don’t have to accept poor health and fitness caused by bad habits.  Although it varies greatly in difficulty, we can control and manage our weight.  We chose daily what we put into our mouths and how active we are.  "Accepting yourself" should not be an excuse to live an unhealthy lifestyle.

We Christians need to first stop believing these lies about our bodies.  We need to get into the Word and see all the areas that God does care about.  We need to encourage each other in love to make wise choices. I'm not saying that you approach your girlfriend and at church and say, "Hey girl, we need to talk about that junk in your trunk."  I am saying though that pastors should be preaching about honoring God with our bodies, churches should have gyms and classes.  I think we should be active with our kids; hiking, biking, eating healthy.  I also think we should stop supporting some of the crazy stuff people do to lose weight.  I see stuff on Facebook ALL of the time.  Someone says, "Hey I lost 30 pounds on the Cabbage Soup Diet" and there are 24 posts from other Christians; "congrats", "You look amazing", or "Keep up the good work".  We should rejoice with others and be happy for them, but when they are losing body fat in a healthy way, not some crash diet.  When you see that happening, don't comment.  If you live close, suggest to your friend that she join you for a CrossFit workout.  My point is that we should support and encourage each other to make good choices so that we can live long and happy lives.

My prayer is that we will all not just survive in our lives, but as John 10:10 says, to live it abundantly.  Some synonyms for abundantly are richly, lavishly, and bountifully.  What wonderful words to live by.  God also want us to live free.  One of my favorite Bible verses is Galatians 5:1, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery."

Don't be deceived or naive; we are being fed lies constantly.  Lies that want to make us a slave to something.  Lies that tell us God doesn't care about our bodies.  Why do you think Satan would want us to believe that lie?  Satan hates us, he wants us to dishonor God and slowly commit suicide with unhealthy choices.   Not only that, he wants us to beat ourselves up about it too.  If you have ever struggled with your weight you know what I'm talking about.  It's a vicious cycle of being tempted to eat unhealthy, choosing to eat unhealthy, then feeling guilty about it, then deciding to change, then getting frustrated about not seeing progress in the gym or on the scale, which leads us back to being tempted to eat unhealthy because we think "what's the point?".  That is not freedom to me.  That is being burdened and enslaved to your own body.  I've heard many morbidly overweight people make comments like "I felt trapped in my body" or "I felt like I was in a prison".  How does that compare to this statement?

“But I discipline my body, and make it my slave for fear that, having proclaimed the Gospel to others; I should be rejected as a counterfeit.”  ~ 1 Corinthians 9:27

We can either make our bodies our slaves, or we can be slaves to our bodies.  There’s no in-between.

The truth is we are free in Christ!  Hallelujah right?!? If we are slaves to something - even our own bodies- it is only by choice.  I want all of us to love other enough to encourage each other to live our lives abundantly and freely.  So start with your own life today.  Get some accountability, find a gym that focuses on all components of fitness; agility, accuracy, balance, coordination, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, power, speed, strength, and stamina.  Do some research on diets; get back to eating what God designed us to eat which is meat, fruit, vegetables, and good fats.  Take control of what you can in your life and rely on God's daily grace for everything else.  Stop making excuses. You can do it with God's help!