In Part 1 of this series, we learned that Jesus is the perfect vessel and is our potter who will shape and transforms us into His image. We now continue on our journey by keeping our bodies fit for God to use for His glory.
In 1 Kings 6:7, it is said that during the building of God’s house, only blocks dressed at the quarry were used; no hammer, chisel, or any other iron tool was heard at the temple site while it was being built. This shows that all those involved were fully fit and in good shape to be engaged as builders.
No matter who you are, once you stay healthy and maintain good shape, you will be a robust and agile vessel, symbolically a living stone used to build God’s house.
You also, as living stones, are being built up into a spiritual house as a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:5 MEV.
Many believers solely want to depend on God, but they neglect the vital role they have to play to be very healthy, fit, and in good shape, ready for both physical and spiritual tasks. When we are not maintaining our physical bodies, our purpose is not fully realized. We must take adequate steps to ensure we stay fit and exercise regularly.
There are natural benefits to workout sessions in staying healthy and leading a good lifestyle. Exercising helps with maintaining your:
blood pressure
glucose levels
appetite
better mood
mental clarity
energy levels
increased alertness,
good heartbeats,
stress level
agility
The most important benefit is that it slows down aging to help you look and feel your best.
This is what God wants from us: for us to be a healthy vessels fit for good use. Our attractiveness radically increases to gain the favor of other men and women. Our brains are hardwired to want to be around healthy, happy people. People will treat you better if you are at your best. The opposite is also true. People will avoid those who are conveying the wrong message through their outward physical appearance and clothes. Healthy and fit people are more likely to get promotions because they are well received by their co-workers. People naturally want to be around those that are at their best.
Fit people can also better care for their families and not become a burden. When you are in your best health and physically fit, you will naturally be happy and be of service to others.
You might be thinking this is all vanity, and why would God care about our outward appearance when He focuses solely on our inner condition. The truth is that He cares about both. There is no use in being a good believer in God and yet having a decaying physical condition of your own making. Being useful to God is dedicating our physical bodies to His work as an act of worship.
Today, much of the world is still performing hard manual labor in construction, farming, service jobs, manufacturing, and other laborious work. The media makes it all look easy where people are doing more creative online or office work that is done chiefly by clicking the keyboard. All work is hard work for those who want to work. However, modern life has made us more sedentary than those people a few hundred years ago, in an era without electronics and modern energy. Those that do taxing physical work as their livelihood can take their physical fitness for granted and consider themselves blessed. However, those with sedentary desk jobs must work even harder to maintain their health and bodies.
Many notable Biblical characters could only carry out God’s missions by being physically fit. Moses and the Israelites had to be ready to flee and wander the desert for forty years. All their work was done by hand, with no modern electronics to make life easy and comfortable for them like we have today. It's extremely hard to make food from scratch using raw ingredients people had worked to gather or farm. Washing clothes alone was an intensive task that took most of the day—fetching water from wells and many other household tasks that we can’t even imagine today. Now, we push buttons for machines to do all the work and do it fast.
Hard work is good for our bodies, health, and mind. There is much more satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment from doing hard, physical work than in most jobs we have today. We have become biological machinery for corporations to make large profits at our expense. Chinese and Indian workers are exploited to death to create products for the wealthy nations at lower costs than they are willing to make themselves.
Looking to the earliest history in Genesis 11:3-4, the people built the Tower of Babel by molding bricks and working together. That edifice can pass for a skyscraper.
Prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 18:46 ran faster than King Ahab and got to Jezreel.
Samson fought with, defeated, and killed a fierce lion with his bare hands.
King David was as fit as a fiddle. David was a mighty man of valor as he single-handedly destroyed a bear.
Your servant slew both the lion and the bear. And this uncircumcised Philistine will be as one of them, because he has reviled the armies of the living God. David said, ‘The Lord who delivered me out of the paw of the lion and out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.’ And Saul said to David, ‘Go, and the Lord be with you.’ 1 Samuel 17:36-37 MEV.
All these people are examples of how physically fit they were to be of service to God. In like manner, we are to stay fit and healthy.
Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, even as your soul is well. 3 John 2 MEV.
Every wealthy nation will eventually die off from its laziness and decadents. The developing countries are more connected to their work and land that will survive and have better off-springs to carry on to the next generation. This principle was best illustrated in the 2008 cartoon movie WALL.E. The future of a world became unlivable, filled with garbage miles high, so the people lived in a luxury spaceship named Axiom to escape their waste on the earth. Humans did not work. They were consuming nonstop entertainment and fine dining. They got so fat and lazy that they had to be moved around in robotic hovercrafts. An ad was promoted that said, “There is no need to walk.” Everything was fully automated as a city of robotics cared for their every need.
The people never looked beyond their computer screen or changed their clothes. Their high-tech clothes just changed colors. If they fell, robots came to help them up, like lifting heavy machinery back to their chair.
The movie's hero was a cute older model lonely robot named WALL.E. He tried to clear up the earth's garbage. It never truly got cleared as it was only moved from one pile to another. Eve, a newer generation flying robot, was sent to the garbage quarry. The quarry of the future had no value. WALL.E fell in love with Eve, pronounced Eve-aah, and gave her the sole living plant as a gift. Eve instantly hibernated and was transported to the spaceship; WALL.E followed her. The plant was a signal for the humans to return and recolonize earth.
The ship’s captain was so obese and could barely read or write. He only had one task: to change the ship’s mood lighting to night or day. The robots did the ship’s work and decided to rebel and form a mutiny to prevent the humans from returning to the earth. The heartwarming line was when Wall.E called for Eve-aaaaaaaaaah. The robots had more human-like personalities than the humans did. People lost all knowledge and skills.
It is a cute story depicting our future, shifting all hard work to robots, thus leaving humans with pitiful, fat bodies glorifying themselves. This is happening slowly now with modern electronics and comforts that leave us with no actual manual labor. If you ask the younger generation to solve problems using their brainpower, most will not be able to do it today. They rely on Google, calculators, and computer apps to do the work they don’t know. While knowledge is increasing, intelligence is decreasing. However, work and intelligence should go hand in hand.
Rather than calling out obesity and laziness for what it is, the mainstream media says that fat, unhealthy bodies are now body-positive and a form of empowerment and self-love that is considered the new sexy. The western media is body shaming the healthy and fit by calling them body racist or other stupidity. The most prominent cancel culture is Satan wants to cancel God and His image in us.
God wants us to love others as ourselves, submit, and be fit to be a good vessel for Him to utilize.
While you wait for the next chapter on eating healthy and knowing the right foods for your body, go exercise and break a sweat.
All copyright-free images used were obtained from Unsplash and PxHere.
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