While you are focused on reading to this post, your body is automatically performing a host of functions, some of which are keeping you alive. It grows hair, produces saliva, inhales and exhales oxygen, keeps you hydrated, keeps your heart beating, it produces millions of blood cells, repairs bones, cleans your blood, digests foods and liquids, sheds and replenishes your skin, it even prevents cancer and all sorts of infirmities.  The body is simply the most advanced and complex structure in the universe, it’s God’s masterpiece.

The Bible says that when God created our bodies he purposely fashioned them after himself. We were created on purpose. And the Bible also tells us that God created our bodies with a distinct and specific purpose, so that we would be the distinct temples of the Holy Spirit, and for the specific purpose of honoring Him with our bodies.

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore HONOR God with your bodies.– 1 Corinthians 6:19-20

Most people fall into one of two categories, they either neglect their bodies or they worship them. The extreme body neglecters do whatever makes them comfortable or gives them pleasure with no regard for the abuse they impose on their bodies. The extreme body worshippers are servants to their bodies; they live for their bodies. Both of these extremes have a profound negative effect on your relationships, especially on those closest to you. The goal, however, is not to find the proper balance, the goal is to find the proper perspective. And, the proper perspective is to honor God with our bodies.

The word honor means to provoke a positive opinion. In this case, by the way, we use our bodies, it would cause people to have a positive opinion of God. It does not mean to adopt a religious way of thinking, talking, walking or dressing. It means to live your life wherever you are in a manner that would cause people to praise God. The proper perspective, therefore, is to honor God with our bodies.