God wants us to worship Him with body, soul, and spirit. This devotional reading looks at how we worship with our bodies.
Nuggets
- We worship God with our bodies as we carry out the actions associated with our choices.
- Body, soul, and spirit are all connected.
- We are to imitate Jesus, Who gave His body as a sacrifice for God.
Charnock had just got done telling us that our acts of service must stem from the motivations of love for and faith in God. Then, he says something interesting. He wrote, “Yet the worship of our bodies is not to be rejected.”
Resource
Hmmm. What in the world did Charnock mean by that? Luckily, he gave us two out of three verses for his points.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the Finding Jesus through Spiritual Worship study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
The foundation of this series is Menander and Charnock’s Spiritual Worship.
Resource
The headings are Charnock’s words.
Bodily Worship Is Due God
“Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body” (I Cor. 6: 19-20 NLT)
We worship God with our bodies as we carry out the actions associated with our choices.
We are told that we need to present our bodies to God. Kelly said that this is because the body as well as the soul are redeemed.
Resource
I can see that. The original sin was a physical act of disobedience against God.
Yes, the choice was made to sin in the mind. It had to be carried out with the body.
I also see this as a total submission to God. We have to be all in. “Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God.” (Rom. 6: 13 NLT).
I know. We are still in sinful bodies. We aren’t going to be 100%-fruit-of-the-Spirit perfect.
It still matters. Chrysostom told us why. He wrote, “For sacrifice can be made only of that which is clean; sacrifice is a firstfruit of other actions.”
Resource
I think we get the clean part. We can sometimes space out on the other actions part.
Our sacrifice has to be total — mind, body, and soul. That way the good actions are the foundation. They lead to other good actions.
If the sacrifice wasn’t complete, we would be unclean. Iffy actions would be the foundation. Yeah, we might get some good actions — but we would also get bad actions.
David also told us why it is important. “The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God” (Ps. 51: 17 NLT).
No, that doesn’t mean a shattered heart and a dejected attitude.
The broken part means we don’t put ourselves over God. We admit that we have sinned and are separated from Him. We know Jesus is the only one who can save us.
That is where the repentant heart comes into play. Repentance is acknowledging our separation from God and expressing sorrow for breaking God’s laws and commandments by making the commitment to change our sinful ways to ways of righteousness through obedience.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Obedience means submitting ourselves to the will of God as it is presented to us and living our lives accordingly.
Glossary
I know people don’t like the word submit. They think more of subjugation. That isn’t what God is going for.
God wants us to yield our will to His.
What we don’t always think about is that, if we are not submitting to God, we are submitting to Satan. “Don’t you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living” (Rom. 6: 16 NLT).
If we don’t submit to God, we already are submitting to Satan.
Spiritual Worship Can’t be without Bodily Expression
Body, soul, and spirit are all connected.
Since there was no verse associated with this, I wondered what we were going to do with this. Martin helped us out. He wrote,
“But as the body is the visible part of our nature, the organ of practical activity, as soul and spirit cannot now be devoted to God, except as connected with the body, nor themselves without the body, and as the body cannot be presented as a sacrifice separate from the spirit; moreover, as the allusion to the ancient sacrifices required the recognition of the material part of our nature, we may conclude that by ‘your bodies’ is intended ‘yourselves.’”
Resource
What Martin is saying here is the soul bone and the spirit bone are connected to the body bone. Total submission to God can’t happen without all three.
We have to remember that bodies doesn’t just mean our physical skeleton. It means our nature, too. It means our character and identity.
We have to identify as God’s child.
Isn’t it better that way? God isn’t interest in us being robots. He wants us to have free will. Free will is the ability within us to make decisions, which determine actions that produce character.
God doesn’t want to dictate who we are and what we are. He gives us a choice. We have to want to choose Him.
Christ Worshiped with His Body
“He walked away, about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, ‘Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine’” (Lk. 22: 41-42 NLT)
We are to imitate Jesus, Who gave His body as a sacrifice for God.
Jesus used His body to give the ultimate worship.
Okay, Jesus did pray to not to have to go through the crucifixion. He knew it was going to be a hard row to hoe.
Jesus gave His life anyway.
No, it wasn’t because Jesus didn’t want to return to the Father. He really did.
Jesus knew He would be flogged. He knew He would die.
Jesus knew it was going to hurt.
Jesus gave His life anyway.
Look at Jesus’ prayer. “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine” (Lk. 22: 42 NLT).
We are to imitate Jesus. That means we are to worship God as He did.
The worship Jesus gave to God indicated that He would do whatever God asked, regardless of the consequences.
Will God ask us to die for Him? Maybe. We have to be willing.
Making the Connections
Look at it this way. Let’s say Tom and Sally both ABCD on the same day. Tom’s actions change to follow God’s laws and commandments. Sally’s don’t.
Most will probably question whether Sally’s conversion experience was genuine. It looks like she is giving lip service.
We don’t want that to happen. We want to genuinely be saved.
How Do We Apply This?
- Yield ourselves completely to God for the entirety of our lives.
- Be inwardly holy.
- Sacrifice to God what is pleasing to Him.
Resource
Father God. We admit that we are sinners and are separated from You. We believe that the only way to remedy that is to ask Jesus as our Savior and Redeemer. We confess You as Sovereign God. But Lord, until we begin obeying Your laws and commandments and walking in the Spirit, our conversion experience is not genuine. Help us to walk with You. Amen.
What do you think?
Leave me a comment below (about this or anything else) or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.
If you don’t understand something and would like further clarification, please contact me.
If you have not signed up for the email providing the link to the devotions and the newsletter, do so below.
If God has used this devotion to speak with you, consider sharing it on social media.
The headings are Charnock’s words.