Renovation of the Heart
Transforming the Body (1|4)
Pages 159-162
• Our Bodies Wrongly Positioned in Life
• The Basic Nature of Our Bodies and of Physical Objects
• My Body Becomes Me
• My Body, My Character, and My Body Language
• Incarnation and Our Bodies
TOGETHER read the devotional and the scripture.
INDIVIDUALLY take notes in your journal on what stands out.
Galatians 6:8 (NIV) Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
1 John 4:2-3 (NIV) This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
Galatians 2:20 (NIV) I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
1 John 4:17 (NIV) This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
Romans 8:11 (NIV) And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Philippians 3:10-11 (NIV) I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
TOGETHER pray for one another.
INDIVIDUALLY answer the questions in your journal - process your devotional notes and pray.
Our Bodies Wrongly Positioned in Life
“Paul tells us that those who live in terms of the ‘flesh’ - the merely natural powers of the human being, based in the human body - what can their minds set on (or are totally preoccupied with) the flesh (or what they can manage on their own). He continues on to say in Romans 8:5-6 (NIV) Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. Such a mind is naturally hostile toward God because (verse 7) it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.”
How are our bodies “wrongly positioned” in life on our own?
The Basic Nature of Our Bodies and of Physical Objects
“I can only liberate and use the energy in other physical objects by using my own body. It, too, is potential energy. - My body is the only body whose energy is directly accessible for my own use and satisfaction. I access it by choice. Even the child that sucks its thumb has mastered this basic fact. It gets little energy, perhaps, but obviously a lot of satisfaction from this direct use of its body.”
Can a society that proclaims “do whatever feels good” generate satisfaction?
My Body Becomes Me
“My body is the original and primary place of my dominion and my responsibility. - My life experiences come to me through or in conjunction with my body. - It is only with and through my body that I receive a place in time and space and human history. - But there is more. Upon this already very complicated basis, I begin to extend my kingdom and I take on voluntary aspects of my identity. - I generate a realm in which I am driven by desire and channeled by ideas, sensations, and emotions that play over my body. I come to have a history, a track record that tells the truth about me in depth and from which I can never escape.”
In what respects are my life and identity inseparable from my body?
My Body, My Character, and My Body Language
“In developing my dominion I soon run into realities that do not yield to my will. Often these are the kingdoms of other individuals, organized around their desires and contrary to my own. So I begin to experience destructive emotions, especially fear, anger, envy, jealousy, and resentment. (Here is Cain.) These may, in time, develop into settled attitudes of hostility, contempt, or indifference.”
What is your response to this statement? Do you agree?
“Most of what is called ‘character’ (good or bad) in normal human life consists in what our bodies are or are not at the ready’ to do in the specific situations where we find ourselves. Those ‘readinesses’ enter our consciousness primarily, if at all, through how we feel about things, how we are directly ‘moved’ by things and events around us. - Those readinesses and feelings that run our lives, whether we are aware of them or not, reside in fairly specific parts of our bodies, and they reveal themselves to others through our body language - in how we ‘carry’ our bodily parts. - We wear our souls ‘on our sleeve,’ even when we ourselves are oblivious to them, and that governs the quality of our relations to others. ”
Is it possible that much of our character consists in what our bodies are “at the ready” to do without being told?
Incarnation and Our Bodies
“Our bodies are an essential part of who we are, and no redemption that omits them is full redemption. - Such a strong position is taken in the New Testament because redemption is in the first place for ‘the life which I now live in the flesh’ (Galatians 2:20.) This present life is to be caught up now in the eternal life of God. But, of course, ‘the life I now live in the flesh’ is inseparable from the mortal body I now have. - The redemption of the body will be completed later (Romans 8:11). We are to know now ‘the power of His resurrection’ (Philippians 3:10). Our bodies are not just physical systems but are inhabited by the real presence of Christ .”
What does this mean and what is your response?
EXTRA READING:
“The first step of humility is to cherish at all times the sense of awe with which we should turn to God.”
- Benedict of Nursia (480 - 547)