The Body - A Witness of Christ

"...according to my earnest expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that your proud confidence in me may abound in Christ jesus through my coming to you again." Philippians 1:20-26 NASB

As we, once again read this passage, (verse 20) we see that Paul placed a very high priority on what his body did. He has written twice in the 1 Corinthian letter (chapter 3 and again in chapter 6) that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. When we begin to process the truth of His indwelling in us, many "religious thinking bondages" begin to drop away. We become aware that this body is not just some awful habitation to put up with until we are free from it. Instead, we see that we are to regard it as a temple of our God and something that is intended to be used to exalt the Lord.

Paul did not want to come up short in this area. Whether he lived or died, he wanted his physical frame to exalt the Lord. He was not interested in jus his words, but his entire person - and that included his body. He wanted the body itself to be a witness of the magnitude of his God.

Working with our Lord in the scriptures regarding the physical aspect of our existence is very important as we move forward in Him. He loves all we are and He loves the body we share. That's right, He shares this body with me and your body with you. So as we live and process His Word, let us also treasure what He treasures. May we be spurned to take care of the temple in all areas so it becomes a major factor in the exaltation of Christ in us.

I would like to write about what we allow to come from our mouths as a part of this understanding, but feel that just mentioning it is sufficient right now. May we with ears, hear what the Spirit is saying.

(If you are having trouble seeing the verse or verse in the posts that I am highlighting, my apologies. I have changed my browser to Chrome for this writing in a effort to solve the problem. Sometimes programs work best in their home environment . Since Blogger is a Google product, it make sense to work with it here).