Our Bodies and Our Religion
By L. A. Hansen
We Are to Serve God in a Practical Way—This Includes
the Proper Care of the Body RELIGION is more than a thing of the mind. It is not confined to a mental assent or acquiescence to certain tenets or doctrines. It does not lie in creed or dogma. It is not mere acknowledgment of faith and belief. It does not consist in intellectual reasoning or philosophic deductions. It is not merely "a way of thinking." Religion is more than sentiment. It means more than a response of the emotions. It does not stop with ecstasy of feeling. It does not lie merely in beautiful reflection or spiritual meditation. NOT ABOVE THE PLANE OF MORTALS
Spiritual living does not mean an existence somewhere above the plane of mortal life, in a realm of abstract contemplation. It is not an experience outside the world of real things, in which we are taken out of ourselves, as it were. It is not even a life of negative experience alone, where all one is to do is not to do wrong. Genuine Christian experience, "pure religion and undefiled," is something very positive, very real. It has to do with doing things. It involves the whole life and all its activities. It brings into action the use of not only our mental faculties, but our physical functions as well, and includes the exercise of the material members of our material bodies. It comprehends organs and their service. It embraces the expenditure of physical strength and energy. It takes in the proper care of the body. SERVE HIM WITH WHAT WE ARE
In other words, we are to serve God with what we have and what we are. The Christian says, "The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." Gal. 2: 20. True consecration acknowledges the whole individual as God's and the body as a temple of the Holy Ghost. We are to glorify God in the body, and in the spirit. 1 Cor. 6: 19, 20. We have no other life than the one we know in the body, lived in the exercises of the bodily members and functions. The use of hands, feet, eyes, ears, and mouth, gives expression to the real service we can render to God. These physical members are to be yielded to Him as instruments of righteousness. Rom. 6: 13. It is in this body and in this mortal flesh that the Christ life is to be made manifest. 2 Cor. 4: 10, 11. In fact, there is nowhere else that we can serve God than here in the body, where we are; and there is nothing else with which we can serve Him than this life. Here, then, we have the importance of cleansing ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh, as well as of the spirit. We can understand why we should present our "bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God," which is our "reasonable service." Rom. 12: 1. The body is for the Lord, and is to be sanctified by Him. This does not mean that works of the flesh fulfill the requirements of God's law and gain for us eternal life. It does not at all ignore the exercise of faith. It does not deny the place of the will or the sphere of thought, purpose, and choice in relation to sin or righteousness. It only emphasizes the importance of recognizing the real channel or means by which we are to express our worship. CANNOT DRINK IN, BUT MAY DRINK OUT
We cannot eat or drink ourselves into the kingdom of God, but we can eat or drink in a way to be kept out of it. The aged Paul, after years of preaching to others, and after enduring many trials and much suffering, realized that he was in danger of being cast away through lack of body control. He urges the necessity of temperance in all things in order to gain the mastery and be a victor in the race for eternal life. 1 Cor. 9: 24-27. True service to God brings us to a recognition of His laws of health and their demands. We must give thought to our manner of living. We cannot eat or drink merely to please ourselves. We have to use moderation in work. We must regard the need of proper rest and sleep. We will clothe ourselves properly. We will keep clean, in body and premises; and we will do everything in our power to safeguard sacredly our health, for it is to the glory of God. 1 Cor. 10: 31. PHYSICAL CONDITIONS MUST BE RECOGNIZED
It is not only fitting and consistent that a religious movement should include the promulgation of health and temperance principles; it is essential. Gospel effort must take into account physical conditions and needs. Spiritual interests are inseparably associated with the material life. In fact, the material life becomes what we are pleased to term the spiritual life, when in all its relations it is yielded to God.