Blake Long

For the longest time I have not needed to worry about what foods or drinks I consume. I have always been skinny and scrawny. I could drink Dr. Pepper and eat fast food all day and it not make me sluggish or gain weight.

Times have changed. The moment I quit college golf, I could tell my metabolism slowed down. I gain a little bit of weight because, quite simply, I wasn’t active as I once was. Then I got married. Then I had kids.

Now I officially (for quite some time) have a “dad bod.”

But what I’ve noticed in the past year or two is that I have not only neglected my physical health, but have become a tad gluttonous. Or, at the very least, I don’t believe I have been intentional about glorifying God with my body.

I have eaten too many sausage biscuits, drank too many Redbulls, and not had enough portion control. I hadn’t given thought to the junk I put in my body because, for most of my life, it hadn’t made a difference.

But now it does.

Conviction set in quickly the other day when I read 1 Corinthians 6:20, “for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” That last part hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew I hadn’t glorified God in my body, and it was time to start.

I am quickly realizing, because it was an after-thought for my entire life, that truly caring for my body is going to be tough. I know I should glorify God in my body, but it’s extremely hard to do so.

It means I need to work out far more than I do (which is basically nothing).

It means I need to not only eat healthier, but less.

My body is a temple; I was a bought with a price. And because of that, I need to start glorifying God in my body.

There’s an ancient heresy called Gnosticism that essentially said our bodies were evil, and that taking care of our bodies doesn’t matter. Barry Cooper in the Simply Put podcast by Ligonier Ministries said:

Gnostics say that spirit is good, and matter, including the physical body, is evil.

Gnostics believe that we need to be delivered from the physical world in order to go to the spiritual world.

This view has heretical implications about Jesus not having a real, human body; but the point here is that our bodies are not evil; this material world is not intrinsically bad. Therefore, it is good and right and godly to take care of your body, to glorify God in your body.

And that’s the mission I’m on now, though imperfectly so. We ought to take care of our bodies because it’s the body God gave us. I don’t write this blog because I’m good at doing this still. I’m not. It’s a struggle, and sometimes I don’t care. But I am seeing the problem, and need the Lord’s help. Do you find yourself in this situation, too? Pray for God to give you the discipline to eat better, be active, and be intentional about glorifying God in your body.