1 Corinthians 6:19 NRSV) Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?...
...I've been thinking a lot about this over these past nine months, since I started training the right way ( i.e. HIT training). It has seemed that the better shape I get in, the better I eat ( and yes, that often means the LESS I eat), the closer I feel to God. Seriously, I have had a spiritual awakening this year as I've had a physical rejuvenation.
It makes me think to the old "Muscular Christianity" adherents back in the 1890s or so. Right about the time the pentecostal churches started, and the spiritual awakening here in the U.S. and Wales. ( Charles Fox PARHAM, btw, a distant cousin I guess, was called "The Father of Pentecost".) Do I see a connection between the "physical culturists" movement and the spiritual awakening? My guess is yes. First the physical, then the spiritual, it seems. Which makes sense, since we are in a physical body ( or "earth suit", as I like to say). Now does this mean out of shape people aren't or can't be close to God? Of course not. I'd never presume to say that. However, it seems to me that taking care of our bodies is a God given responsibility. ( One that I haven't always done well on myself... so no stones are being thrown here! Glass houses, you know!)
Just something to think about...
The way we treat our body is one measure of our attitude to God Himself. It surely doesn't honor Got if we allow His temple to becaome a polluted, poisoned, owheezing, over-weight and out- of -condition hulk of flab... ( "Healing Anointing", by Colin Dye).
