A Healthy Body

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, October 13th. Most of us know good nutrition is vital to good health, but often that doesn't impact the choices we make. Today we'll see that being a good steward of our physical body is a factor in reaching our full potential.

We oftentimes overlook a very key factor in helping us reach our potential in life, and we are in a series entitled How to Reach Our Full Potential, and we've talked about a clean heart, we've talked about a clear mind, a balanced schedule, and this morning I want to talk about a healthy body. Now, we can't reach our full potential unless we do take care of our bodies because our bodies are very important, and so I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 6 for a moment. I want us to read a passage here, and I just want us to read this as a jumping off place because I don't want to expound the passage except to say the apostle Paul had been dealing with the Corinthians, and they misinterpreted something he said. Twice he said, for example, in the 12th verse of the 6th chapter, he said, all things are lawful for me.

He said it twice, and he said it twice in the 10th chapter. Well, some of those Corinthian believers took that to say that they had all kinds of freedom. In other words, Paul said, all things are lawful for me. He didn't say anything was, but he was speaking of a certain aspect of the Christian life and the things that the law required and so forth. And so what they did is they decided that since they were free in Christ, they were free to have any kind of sexual relationships they wanted in life, and so what he's writing about here is to clarify that. And so he comes down to the last couple of verses, and he says, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? But you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. And so he ends the passage that way, and I simply want to emphasize those last two verses when he says that our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and he says, it's not your own, and it never will be. That is, our bodies have not been our own, and they're not our own today, and they never will be our own.

We're his possession created by him, and as he says, to bring him glory and honor. So when we think about this whole idea of reaching our potential and the importance of our body, oftentimes we're interested in other things, and we think other things, education, skills, talents, abilities and gifts and opportunities and all the rest is so very important. And I think about how often we see people indulging their lives in situations and circumstances, and then they wonder why they feel the way they feel, they wonder why they can't reach their potential, wonder why they don't have their motivation, oftentimes are willing to be satisfied where they are in life and then blame it on the way they feel.

Well, you can't always control your feelings, and we've said enough about that, that we don't live by feelings, we live by our faith and our trust in God because he will enable us to achieve and accomplish whatever his will is. But we do have a responsibility when it comes to our part. We've said God's responsibility, of course, is to give us the skills and abilities and talents. It is his responsibility to give us a sense of direction in our life. We said we want to line our life up with God's will for his purpose in our life.

That's what we're living for. Our body, he says, is to bring him glory and honor. So that can be our desire, and God's going to do his part. But we have a part that we have to do, and one of those areas we said is a clean heart to keep our life pure. We set a clear mind to be able to think the way God thinks, which he has made it possible for us to do, and certainly keep our schedule balanced so that there's time for God and seeking direction for our life. But also there is this whole circumstance and situation of our own physical bodies.

We have responsibilities. So with that in mind, I want to say, first of all, that God's plan for enabling us to reach our potential certainly and of necessity involves our body. And I think the greatest affirmation of that is the incarnation.

The incarnation is the fact that God became man, walked among us, lived as a man among us, and assumed a human body and a human body that could hurt and feel pain just like ours can hurt and feel pain. And so probably when you think about the human body, the greatest affirmation of its value is the fact that God took upon himself a human body just like any other man's except without sin and lived among us. He walked among us. He touched people. That is, the hand of Jesus was like an extension of God's awesome love. Wherever he was, he was ministering, pouring out his life, walking among men as a man in a physical body, which ought to say something to us about it because if you'll think about this, that holy, perfect, sinless, pure God was willing to place himself in a human body and walk among man to realize and to help us to understand what God is all about in a human body. And he said these bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit. Somebody says, well, but suppose a person is not a Christian. Is that still the temple of the Holy Spirit?

Well, let me ask you a question. If you didn't show up this morning, would this still be a church building? It sure would. It would be empty, but it would be a church building. Every single human body God created to be a temple of the Holy Spirit.

That is, that he would indwell that person. That in itself, as I think about it, should say something to us about the sacredness of the human body. And if you'll think about it, that when God created Adam, he created him with awesome potential. So when you look at the life of Jesus, and we've said it before, he lived his life out, the full potential of his life, of what? Becoming, he was the Son of God, he became the Savior of the world, and he lived it out in a human body.

In those 30-some years that he lived on earth, we saw and we see as we read, here is God walking among men in a human body. Well, when he created Adam, how did he create him? He created him with the full potential of what he was to do.

Now, think about what he was to do. Go back to Genesis chapter 1 for a moment, and notice what he said to him. He created Adam with his full potential.

That is, here's what he could do. Jesus came with a full potential and lived it out, every single moment of it. Listen to what he said to Adam. Creating the first man, he said, verse 26. Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and then here's what he said to them. Let them rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

Verse 28, God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the sky, over every living thing that moves on the earth. That is, God gave Adam and mankind an awesome responsibility. He's given all of us a responsibility. And so when I think about the kind of potential that was wrapped up in Adam when he said, Adam, this is your job.

Your job, Eve's job, the families that come after you, here's what you're to do. So that God has created every single one of us, knows our personality, knows what we are made of. He's given you, placed within you the potential of becoming everything you had as in mind. You are the temple of the living God, and therefore we have a responsibility to take care of these bodies. And so when you look at the fact that Jesus' body was the living God walking among us, He gave Adam and Eve this awesome potential and responsibility they have that He's given us the same. What we have to ask is, will we cooperate with Him in such a way that He'll be able to bring Himself honor and glory through our lives and these bodies through which we live?

Because this is who you are. Now it's whatever you are, and we could, all of us have a different body and all of us have a different personality. But the truth is, God's chosen every single one of us, as He says, to bring Him honor and glory.

We're His possession created for His purpose, and He says, indwelt by Himself. Now, with that in mind, let's think about this. There's an undeniable relationship between our potential and fulfilling our potential and these bodies that we have. And when you think about it, for example, that an unhealthy body prevents us from reaching our potential oftentimes.

So let me say two things at this point. Number one, there are people who have had, who have been sick for years and years and years, who have an awesome potential to influence multitudes of people. So I'm not saying that it's always in every single case that if a person is sick or ill or has some kind of broken body that they can't reach their potential in their life.

But you know what? When a person is in a situation like that, when they give themselves over to God, they say, Lord, at this point, in this circumstance, in this situation in my life, whatever you want, however you want to use me, whatever it may be, then they may reach a potential in another area of their life they never even planned on. And so that's why we can't judge other people. We don't know what God's doing in their lives. What you and I have to be responsible for is what is He doing in our life?

What is our potential? And we have a responsibility to keep these bodies as healthy as possible. And though oftentimes that is not always easy to do, depending upon what your responsibility is. And so what I want us to see is this. We do have a responsibility. It may not always work out exactly like we want it.

We'd all like to be healthy every single day and get up every single morning feeling fantastic and always that way and never get sick. But that's not the way life is in the world in which we live. But on the other hand, there's so many people who never even think about the fact that my body is the temple of the living God. He's living on the inside of me. This is His temple.

How am I going to treat it? Because we are responsible for treating it the best we know how in the circumstances and the environment of the world in which you and I live. Now, why is it that we allow our bodies to get in the position they're in and oftentimes it starts very young in some people's lives, sometimes later. The idea that we think that we can treat this body any old way we want to and somehow we're going to make it. And we forget the fact that it's the temple of the Spirit of God. It doesn't belong to us. It's the possession of God. And I think we certainly need to teach our children that your body does not belong to you.

It belongs to the living God who created you. You do not have a right to drink alcohol. You do not have a right to put drugs in there. You do not have a right to destroy your physical body. It's not yours. It belongs to God. And you do not have the right to smoke.

It's God's body. That's not your privilege. Some of you, I have the privilege of doing anything I want to with my body.

No, you don't. The government may give you the right to do it. Your family may give you the right to do it. But God doesn't give you the right to do it. God doesn't give us the right to do anything that harms the human body to keep us from reaching our potential. And somehow we have the idea that we have this freedom to do what we choose. This is what Paul was talking about.

He said, you know, he said, the Corinthians were saying, well, you know, we have freedom in Christ. We can do anything we want to. But the body doesn't belong to us.

It belongs to the living God. And when I think about that, here's what I have to think about. Anything, now watch this, anything that's an enemy to my body is an enemy to my potential.

For example, let's name them. If you're not guilty, you can relax. If you are, that's your problem. For example, alcohol is an enemy of the human body. There is absolutely no question about its effect upon the brain, upon the liver, upon the heart, and many other things. Alcohol is an enemy of the human body. Tobacco is an enemy of the human body. It affects your lungs, it affects your heart. All these things and people say, I can do anything I want to to my human body.

You do not have that privilege. Now if you don't care about what happens, you don't care about the effects of the temple of God, you don't care about your potential, doesn't make any difference, smoke and drink all you want to. All you're doing is destroying what does not belong to you. Drugs, for example. They're destroying their brain, their body. Now whether it's drugs bought on the street or oftentimes drugs bought at the prescription. It's the same thing in how many times, how many people are dying wrong prescriptions. Overdoses of this, that, and the other.

What you have to ask is this. If it's not good for my body, it is the enemy of the temple of the living God. The issue is this, what am I doing to the human body? It is a sin against the living God to defile the body. Now we think that defiling the body can be just sex.

That's one way. But to defile the body with alcohol, drugs, tobacco, whatever it may be, is to defile the temple of the living God. What about stress? You say, well, everybody has stress, that's right, a little bit of stress or sometimes a whole lot of stress.

But when it's on and on and on and on, what does it do? It affects the heart, affects the mind, affects many aspects of the body. And for example, there are millions and millions and millions of people who live under stress, all kinds of stress. Some of it is stress they place on themselves because of the guilt they live under or the kinds of situations or circumstances.

And what do they do? Instead of going to God, they go to the pill bottle or to something to drink or whatever it may be. And oftentimes because of different situations and circumstances, one person goes to the God and the other person goes to the bottle.

It doesn't make any difference. The issue is what am I doing with what doesn't belong to me? I don't have the right to do that.

I don't have the privilege to do that. And you see, if there were only unbelievers who were guilty, that would be one thing. But Christians oftentimes are just as guilty and somehow we have the idea that we can separate this body from the living God and you cannot because He indwells the body of every single believer. And therefore, He has the right to tell us what we can do and what we can't do. I think about the diet, for example.

And I'm going to be careful here. Obesity affects your heart, affects your liver, affects strokes, diabetes. Three hundred thousand people die a year just related to overeating, not just related to obesity. I know that some people have physical problems, but here's the issue is this.

Your body belongs to God and we are responsible for what we put in and how we deal with it. Whether it's overwork, stress or whether it's what we eat, a diet or whatever it might be. And then I think also a critical spirit, a person who has a critical attitude, a person who is negative about themselves, for example. Another thing they did, another research, over a period of, they took people, six hundred people who between their fifties and their sixties and for twenty-three years they tested them. The people who began with a positive attitude about being healthy and having good health, at the end of that twenty-three years the people who had the proper attitude, positive attitude lived seven and a half years longer than the people who did not on the average. And so our attitude makes a difference. In other words, if you understand that your body is the temple of the Spirit of God and you belong to Him and what you put in it and how you treat it makes a difference and some people abuse their bodies and some people ignore their bodies and some people take good care of their bodies and you know what?

Sometimes you take the best care you can, you still have problems, but you know what? I think God certainly will honor when you and I honor the fact this belongs to Him. And it's here to house Him. You see, the truth is our bodies are habitats. That is, we house the living God along with our personalities. That's who we are.

That's what we are. And what we have to ask is, how am I going to treat it? Depends on what I think it is.

Depends on who I think it belongs to and depends on what I think the purpose of it is. The purpose of the human body is to house the personality and the Spirit of God who lives within us to bring honor and glory to God to complete His purpose, fulfill His plan, His purpose in life. When I get that kind of a perspective on the human body, then I'm going to say, all right, what am I doing or is there anything that I'm doing here that would be a problem here?

And oftentimes there is. So you think about how you treat yours and I wouldn't tell you how to treat your body. I'm just simply saying I want you to get the point that you belong to God. And He had something special, personal in mind when He created you. And only you and God will know what that is. But the issue is, will you be able to fulfill your potential, live it out the way God wants you to live it out.

Listen, be blessed the way God wants to bless you if you keep living the way you're living or treating your body the way you're treating it. And I'm simply saying here this morning as children of the living God, we're responsible as best we can with the wisdom that God gives us to protect these bodies because they are His possession for His purpose, for His honor, for His glory to live out our potential. He has invested in every single one of us this awesome potential to become the persons He wants us to be. And only as I recognize that and do my best at that point can I be my best and achieve and accomplish what God has for me and has for you. And I simply want to say to you this morning, we're responsible. And you know what?

Watch this. As an adult, nobody else is going to be responsible for us. In other words, we're adults. As children, we're responsible to give them a good example and to guide them. But we as adults are responsible to the living God for what we do with these human bodies. And if you're going to reach your potential in a day or in your lifetime, keeping your body's health as you can, as pure as you can is a God-given command. And to abuse it deliberately and willfully is a sin against the living God. And I want to encourage you this morning, plead with you today to think seriously about what you've heard. Because you only get one, just one.