I recently shared with you
here about a verse that God had placed on my heart regarding my gluttonous, slothful, self. I know, I know, you are probably saying "don't be so hard on yourself!" or "You look fine!".
Lets.get.real
I have grown a lot since I married my best friend almost 4 years ago. I have grown spiritually, I have grown mentally, and I have grown a LOT physically!
But that's the beauty of God's Holy Inspired Word!
Just when you think you are about to give up, or that your healthy self is as old as your marriage license, God gives you that really cool little nudge in the right direction. The funny thing is, His instruction may have been there right in front of your nose (or on your nightstand) all along. All you had to do was open it and spend time with it and learn from it. (I'm talking about the Bible here, yo!)
"Do not destroy the work of God for the sake of food"
Holla!
Verse, where the heck have you been all my life! Have I really been destroying the work of my Lord one Cheese Puff at a time!? Well crap!
1 Corinthians 6: 19-20 answers our question
Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body.
What does this mean? It means that every time, EVERY STINKIN' TIME, we do something to our body or put something in our body that is not healthy we are slapping God in the face!
God sacrificed a lot for this 141 pound girl. He sacrificed his SON...his CHILD! his ONLY child. (you know the verse, John 3:16) for us. So when we do something that isn't pleasing to Him we are pretty much saying "Thanks anyway God, I appreciate you sending your Son for me, but it's my body and I will do with it as I please! You know the answer for that? Heart disease, high cholesterol, diabetes. Don't get me wrong, God doesn't punish us by placing diseases like this these in our lives. He knew that our bodies weren't perfect and therefore He knows that if we treat our bodies as a temple to Him we will be rewarded with good, healthy, temples. When we begin to defile the temple that's when we begin to see the consequences. God never intended for us to make ourselves literally sick with food. We did that to ourselves. He created perfect bodies made in His own image. We are the ones who ate the stupid forbidden fruit. We are held fully responsible for our screw-ups.
On the flip side. As Christians (you know, children of the King of Kings), we should want to have a temple that is Holy before the Lord. We should want to only put good things in it and have it pleasing in God's eyes. When I care more about what I am putting in my body than what my body is putting out for God, I have a problem. And this is where I have been for the last 4 years. It's been more about the food and less about the body and what it should be doing for God.
I can't explain how my mindset has changed since God put this verse in my life. It has totally changed my outlook on why I want to lose 30 pounds. I still have worldly desires, I want to look good, wear my skinny jeans, and not feel like every skinny girl is making fun of me behind my back at the mall (slightly paranoid, I get it!) It's more about wanting to feel good so that I can be used by my Lord to do His work.
I hope you can be inspired by this awesome verse too.
And another cool thing:
A FREE PRINTABLE!
I whipped this thing up in Photoshop to display in my scrapbook/office and I though "Hey, others might want it too." It's 5x7 so you can put it in a frame, on the fridge, or any place that will remind you that God has bigger plans for you than just satisfying your sweet tooth.
*And if you download my free printable, please leave a comment on my blog so that I know people have put it to use. It might encourage me to put some more freebies on here in the future!*