Does God Want you to Exercise?
Often times Christians are focused solely on their spiritual health and neglect their physical well being. I have heard well intentioned Christians quote scripture to justify their inactivity.
For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. (1 Timothy 4:8)
Does this mean that we are to forget about exercise all together? Does this mean that God does not care that we are good stewards of our bodies. After all, when we pass to eternity our bodies will return to the dust from which it came, right?
True enough, our bodies are temporary. They will breakdown and eventually fail us.
The point of Timothy is that we don’t put anything first before God. People of the world sometimes exercise so much that it becomes a spiritual endeavor. God does not want us to do this. He doesn’t want us to put anything first. He must be first.
Yet, God commands us to treat our bodies with respect. Quite simply, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (I Thessalonians 5:23)
When we neglect exercise and eat fried, fatty, nutritionally empty foods that do nothing more than slowly destroy our bodies. God’s Word says He will judge us.
19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (I Corinthians 6:19-20, NIV)
16 Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple. (I Corinthians 3:16-17, NIV)
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:2)
Look what Paul wrote to the church of Corinth:
No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. (1 Corinthians 9:27, NIV)
Therefore, we are not to give in to fleshly desires. We are to discipline our bodies. When we don’t pay attention to what we eat, don’t exercise on a regular basis, or get an adequate nights rest we are not treating the temple with respect. In short, we are not honoring God.
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