Taking care of your health physically and mentally is not a selfish act. When you give value to yourself, you’ll only give more value to others. You’ll be able to act from a full place rather than a drained, exhausted, and resentful place.
Why do we feel like desiring to be healthy, feel comfortable in our bodies, giving priority to taking care of our physical wellbeing is un-spiritual and therefore just vain notions? Can we not offer up this area of our lives to God and ask Him to be involved in our pursuit of a healthier physical body? While we all start from different places – some may be training for a marathon, while another is suffering through an auto-immune disease, while yet another is severely overweight due to a variety of factors, God can take you from wherever you’re at and walk with you in the process towards better health.
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is living in you, who you received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price (Jesus on the cross). Therefore honor God with your (physical) body.” 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 *emphasis added
Don’t fool yourself and think that God doesn’t care about this area of your life. He cares about every part of you – nothing is hidden from him. You can improve your health no matter where you’re starting from. Don’t look at your neighbor to compare where you are, because with the uniqueness of our bodies due to factors of genetics, our history, our jobs and stress levels, our age, etc. we all are so different. Do what you can, no matter where you’re at, and start adopting healthy behaviors.
To do this though you must first renew your mind in this area. You must see that this is important, and then you must surrender your “I’m a loser” and abusive self-talk. Speaking abusive words over yourself are in such violation with being a child of God. As much as you know you don’t have the right to speak harmful words over someone else, why do you think you have the right to speak them over yourself. Your personal feelings about yourself are basically irrelevant when you are a daughter or a son of God. You now are living under who He says you are. And what we speak now over ourselves is, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made”, “I am made in his image”, “I stand before God without condemnation”, “I’m free in Christ”. These are now the amazing and stunning things we speak over ourselves. Not in order to boast – because we did nothing to earn or deserve what He says we are. It’s because when we have relationship with Jesus, we then stand un-condemned because of the price HE paid.
This is grace that I’ll never understand. This is grace that says no matter who you are, no matter what you’ve done, no matter the depression you’re drowning in, no matter how disappointed you are in yourself or what you’ve had to go through in your life maybe at the harmful hand of others – He calls you complete in Him.
You must make a choice to take captive the abusive words you speak over yourself and replace them with His truth of who you are. We have to practice this because it’s not going to come natural. It may even seem arrogant at first. The enemy would love for all of us that call ourselves “followers of Jesus” to stay miserable. To have such a dim light in our demeanor, in our confidence, and in the way we treat others, that our testimony of him is all together unseen. But really, when you start to know and believe the truth of your true identity, it humbles you. It softens your heart because you see you no longer have the right to compare or to ever hold yourself higher than some else, and best of all you don’t need the world’s approval anymore. You become so confident in who he made you to be that you can start to see others with acceptance and love instead of feeling jealously and comparison. You become someone who no longer measures themselves against the person standing next to you, or on Instagram, in your job, in our family or even in the church. When you live out your new identity of who God says you are, you’re now measuring yourself up against God’s word alone.
I promise you friend, I speak from experience. As a young adult, I am now one of the most secure people I know because of understanding my true identity as a daughter of God. Not because I actually think I’m that great. It’s really been the opposite, which could be confirmed by the people who know me best. I’ve struggled with such destructive thoughts about myself in the areas of my personal accomplishments (or the lack thereof), body image issues, and wanting to be liked by everyone that I’ve been in such dark places in the past that I felt like the darkness would ultimately consume me. Thank God for a Savior. Thank God that He replaces our darkness for His light. Thank God that He has revealed to me how wrong I was living, believing that I had a right to be abusive to myself in a way I’d never be to someone else. Thank God, that I’ve been set free – and you can be too!
Jesus didn’t just come to offer you right standing before God by securing your salvation in Him. By receiving the gift of salvation of your soul, that would have truly been enough. But in John 10:10 he gives us even more. He says he came so that you may have life and to have it more abundantly. He wants to give you peace and joy overflowing, not sparingly.
I believe with my whole heart that the abundant life involves your body, mind, and soul being offered up to him. That we would desire to honor God with our physical bodies, the thoughts we dwell and meditate on, and more important than anything, our spirits desiring him above all. I hope you see that your whole person, matters to God.
