Fast forward
Why fasting, diet, and exercise are some of the best spiritual tools you will ever have.
You can’t surrender what you don’t control.
That’s a fact.
And, for those of us practicing the way of Jesus, surrendering our life is what… life is all about.
And life… is messy.
There’s a lot to it.
As a Christian, the reality is that a lot of it is hard to see. It’s hidden, in our hearts, in our motives, and no one besides God really knows what’s going on there. Often, we don’t really know ourselves.
The realms of the heart and of the mind can be murky.
And yet… that’s where the action happens.
That’s what Jesus tells us is the important stuff. It’s kind-of-but-not-really His whole thing… He takes the Law of the Old Covenant and breaks it open across the years of His ministry and says, “Yes, this, but deeper!” and instructs us in the work of our hearts and of our mental life.
He advocates against box checking and for scouring the depths of our intentions and willingness, again and again.
Nowhere is this more clear than in the Sermon on the Mount.
Across three chapters of Matthew He teaches on the motivational realities of love, anger, lust, greed, generosity, ego, jealousy, money and anxiety. It’s amazing… go read it! Seriously… if you don’t know it… you’ll do much better there than here.
This is where you will find Him saying things like, “love your enemies,” “turn the other cheek,” and, “you are the light of the world.”
You know this stuff… even if you don’t know it.
I love it.
I want it… but there’s a problem.
…
I’m terrible at it.
Because the trick is doing it. Being it. And… I’m. Not. It.
So, seeing this… I have really fancy questions, like…
How?
How do I consistently go deeper and avoid the traps of getting stuck checking boxes? Of being the thing that looks like the thing but isn’t actually the thing? That thing?
How do I do this when no one can see the reality of my struggle besides God himself?
How do I do this when I am so much better at looking Christian than being like Jesus?
(That is a problem)
And what I have found, and this may seem counterintuitive, is that this is the moment I’m really (really) glad that I have a body.
That in the reality of myself as a physical and embodied being, God has given me a starting point and a practice that is accountable, visible, and inline with everything else He teaches me.
To look past the surface. To go deeper. To not flinch from the hard work.
…this was a hard won spot for me to get to.
I used to see this very differently.
Let me explain.
I used to think life was like a video game.
I had so much ‘life’ that I could spend, and, that my body was a tool I controlled and used as I navigated my choices to get what I want. Spend a bit here, spend a bit there.
Like a driver getting into his car and ready to go.
Nothing more, nothing less.
I lived this way as an addict. I lived this way as a workaholic. I lived this way as a religious perfectionist.
Go speed racer go.
This is a wonderfully Western idea of life.
Life as ‘apex-consumerism’… yours to use up as you see fit.
The result?
…the thing I would ask any and all is the same thing that was asked of me… and that has been asked by every wise counselor since time began (I love those guys).
“…and how’s that working out for you?”
Every Wise Counselor
The problem with this idea of life as a game… is that it isn’t true.
This isn’t how I respond to and with life …and my saying so doesn’t make it so.
Because while I am not only my body… I am definitely also my body. Pretending that I am not… doesn’t make my choices regarding it any less impactful to my emotional life and spiritual life…. because… it’s all one thing.
No separation.
One life, of body, mind, and spirit, all needing work.
The effort to separate it out… not happening.
And, as I dug deeper into my bible I found that I actually had to go further… and conclude that I was a body which is — critically — also a dwelling place of the spirit of God.
The Christian, it turns out, is not only a body, but a body with a Holy responsibility. The bar is higher.
1 Corinthians 6:19–20
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, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
Everyone has eyes to see this.
1 Corinthians 10:31
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
Why do so few act on it?
Romans 12:1
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice — the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
Why limit the application of these verses to avoiding horrific decisions?
If it is right that I should not profane the temple, then surely… should I not go a step further and honor it?
Maybe do a bit more than avoiding vice… and clean up the front steps? No?
…please keep in mind, I’m not saying, ‘let’s all fit in a neat box of contemporary beauty,’ …I am asking, are we doing as indicated above?
…I do wonder, is it possible that God might care about all this, just a bit? That I am not accidentally-posessing-of a body?
That he made it this way, on purpose? You know, being God and all?
I wonder, is it logical, looking at ourselves, to ask if there might be some relationship between body, mind, and spirit… seeing as we seem to be all three?
I think that’s an interesting question.
So… why don’t we deal with this? Generally?
I think, for the Christian, that much of our contemporary consumer church experience gives us a set of unfortunate outs in either a life lived now that is carnal, feeds appetite, and misses this entirely, or, that focuses on life lived after this one in almost total exclusion of the life God gave us here and now.
You know, the one where He asked us to do all the things.
I think that’s unfortunate.
I think that when Jesus said He came that we might live life in full… He meant it.
John 10:10 (NKJV)
I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
…if that’s what Jesus promised, and we’re following Him… anything else should look like chains.
Chains that look… common.
As common as grace is uncommon, and particular. As common as the sin we had walked into grace to escape.
I mean… to be honest, if this is who we are, if this is what is real, we should do better.
It should be visible, our temple-ness.
Shouldn’t it?
What happened?
I think that our striving to ‘run the race in front of us’ has for many turned into a well-intentioned-fatalism.
An unfortunate view of Gods word as a ‘Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth’ inhabits today’s church …an idea that seems to miss so much of what Jesus died to put in our hands… including a ridiculous and abundant gift of life lived in full, here, now.
I mean… just look at how kids play video games.
Then go look at the crowd at the mall.
Then look at how kids play video games.
Then go back to the mall.
I mean… it’s the same thing.
Just slower.
A short story about Daniel talking to God at the mall:
God: Which of these people are mine and are present as living temples to my glory?
Daniel: Uhm… that really fit couple over there?
God: No, they’re just vegans and into crossfit.
Daniel: Man, they have really pretty skin. Is that the vegan bit?
God: Yes… just because I said you all could eat animals (Genesis 9:3) didn’t mean it’s actually better for you. You’re loosing the thread. Which of these people…
Daniel: Uhm. Thinking. Uhm… ooh! Oooh! Look at that family there, huge smiles, active, they look really healthy inside and out!
God: Hindu.
Daniel: Hindu. Huh.
God: Yeah. Super low divorce rate too.
Daniel: Huh.
“Who are these people who are the temples of the spirit?” I wonder as I look at the crowd.
The answer?
Don’t know.
God does.
All I can say is that I would want to be one of them.
Let’s circle back to the point.
The point is that the reality of a life surrendered is hard. Life, in body, mind, and spirit are all challenging and all need surrendering.
The motivational calling of Jesus to wrestle out the nuance and depth of a clean mind and spirit is slippery, daunting, and hard to hold accountable.
And the body… is a mess.
Everything defaults to poor habits, gravity continues to drag it all south, and we are blessed (stuck) with the reality of our bodies as temples and a church that, overall, maybe doesn’t look like it’s dealing with that.
Sound right?
So the question, and my point in that, is, “is there a clue to all the above in addressing and dealing with the more mundane of the three,‘the body?’”
I think there is.
Here’s why.
Our call to surrender ourselves to God — body, mind, and spirit — is outwardly and easily accountable only in the body.
The slippery slope of motivational maladies that happen with the mind and spirit are much harder to get stuck in with the work of the body because it lacks the emotional drama of everything mind and spirit.
The work of the body creates evidence. It is practical. It is visible.
Your intentional ownership of yourself in this space is something that you will see, that you will have to act out as more than thoughts, or words.
It is a wonderful space to practice the disciplines that challenge you.
Here, an few examples…
Example 1: Fasting
Having a hard time dealing with an internal motivational or heart issue? Maybe you get resentful or jealous. And you’re terrible at handling it in the moment.
Try fasting.
…because fasting fixes heart issues? No.
…because fasting makes you holy and puts you closer to God? No.
…because fasting is going to put you at war with desire and train you to follow through on your convictions?
Yes.
Example 2: Nutrition
Having a hard time with consistent sin habits and struggle you just can’t quit?
Try nutrition.
…because healthy people don’t sin? No.
…because the cultural moment says eat-right-live-right? No.
…because self image is real, and because somewhere in drawing a line in the sand over what you will and will not do you’ll learn something about saying ‘no’?
Yes.
Example 3: Exercise
Having a hard time developing positive habits… like the time you know you should spend in your bible, but don’t, or, the time you know you should spend in prayer… but don’t?
Try exercise.
…because?
…isn’t it clear?
Because the way we keep the temple of God, matters.
Because in disciplining our bodies, we train our minds and spirits.
Because God created us this way, on purpose.
This is how it works.
This isn’t an accident.
We have to take ownership of ourselves, there’s no avoiding that.
We have the chance in our body to learn habits in a space we can see and touch.
We get a benefit from doing this work that goes past our bodies and into Gods heart, our hearts, and deep into our minds.
We learn to do hard things.
We learn to go without.
We learn to admit our weakness.
We learn to deal with appetite.
We learn to take control.
Having taken control we can surrender control.
Having surrendered control we have done with our gift of image-bearing-ness, what God has asked of us.
And, like Jesus, in some teeny, tiny, small and insignificant way, we endure.
And in obedience, discipline, and surrender we choose God’s way over our own.
Hebrews 12:1
…let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.
So let’s go.
Take off the helmet. Surrender the car. Get out of the driver’s seat and onto our knees.
Lose the controller.
I double dare you.
Try it.
Be as intentional with your physical life as you wish you would be with your spiritual life and then come and tell me what happens.
I’ll do the same.
Let’s go and do this.
Let’s see what happens next.
Let’s go and do this right now.
Now.
(Amen)
All scripture referenced is NLT unless otherwise noted. I prefer NLT for postural discussion as it is both reasonably rigorous while retaining a conversational tone.
For study I strongly encourage the use of original language tools, multiple translations, and rigorous critical thought.
Please remember that when you read the Bible in English you are always reading someone else’s theological interpretation of the text.
