This devotional was written by Dr. Robert A. Cook. You can subscribe to his free daily email articles at Walk With The King Today and listen to his Spirit-filled 15-minute messages. Used with written permission.
The Bible does not speak directly about such things as smoking marijuana or downing dry martinis. However, many of the things which we do today affect our bodies, and in turn bear directly on our spirituality and fellowship with other believers. Therefore, we need a guiding principle to help us steer a straight course through the many decisions that confront us every day.
Let’s emphasize the positive rather than the negative. The question isn’t, ‘How much can I do and still be a Christian?’ but rather, ‘How much and how clearly can I glorify my Lord?’ Paul said that whatever we do is to be done for Him and not for ourselves (Col. 3:17,23). The Christian life is a commitment of love between you and the Savior. If your heart is truly His, you will want Him to control all of your life — not just what is easy to give Him.
Remember that you express your faith in Christ through your body. Some people will learn of Jesus only through what they observe in you. So it is important to ask, ‘What will my actions do to my effectiveness as a caring Christian? How will they affect my friends who are watching to see whether Christ lives in me?’ Long ago, the wise church father Jerome said, ‘Do not let your deeds belie your words, lest when you speak in church someone may say to himself, ‘Why do you not practice what you preach?’
Small thought here. Paul said, ‘Ye are not your own’ (1 Cor. 6:19), an idea contrary to all our natural instincts. The bodies in which we live are exclusively our own, some say, and what we do with them is our own business. Not so for believers. Our bodies belong to Jesus Christ and what we do with them is His business.
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
1 Corinthians 6:13 Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. 15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid. 19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? 20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.
1 Corinthians 9:27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
