Be Nice To Your Body

You may not know it to look at you. All you can see sometimes are things you don’t like- the extra weight you’re carrying around your middle, the gray that’s starting to pepper your temples and sideburns, the hair that’s rubbed off your legs from wearing dress slacks all all day.

But the Bible has this to say about you: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of Holy Spirit, whoo is in you, whom you received from God”(1Cor.6:19).

Me? A temple?

Yep.As a believer in Jesus Christ, your heart has now become a place of residence for the Spirit of God. That makes your body a sanctury, a special piece of construction designed to be treated with the same kind of care and decorum you exercise when you’re at church. So for the same reason you don’t scarf down nachos during worship service or wear you lawn-mowing clothes to Sunday school, you should treat your physical body with respect, honor, and a real sense of worth.

So before you go littering it up with another junk-food lunch or refusing to take it out for a walk, remember that this marvelous specimen of God-created equipment is not a thing to be taken lightly. Let’s see some respect here. And pretty soon, you might even see less of those things you dont like.

Intelligence vs. Wisdom

There is  a big difference between intelligence and wisdom. There are many intelligent people who are utterly devoid of wisdom and many wise men and women who didn’t fare well on the SATs. Wisdom is described in the Bible as the skill of living life as God intended. It is not just the ability to “think well” but rather to “thoughtfully act” in a way that is good and godly.

Our wisdom is tested everyday, not with exams that evaluate our mental dexterity, but with the options we face regarding our behavior, values and conversation. The Bible asks, “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom”(Jms.3:13). It is admirable to strive to increase your intelligence, but it is far more important to make progress in acquiring wisdom.

Solomon exhorted us to “Get wisdom…. though it costs you all you have” because “wisdom is supreme”(Pr.4:7).It begins with a right perspective of God(Pr.9:10) and is increased by time in God’s word (Ps.119:99). Let’s all seek more of it, for God loves to grant it.

 

 

Dirty Laundry

The Words of gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man’s inmost parts.Proverbs 26:22

Gossip is so big in our society that we have created an entire industry around it. The sole purpose of gossip magazines, newspapers and television shows it to air out people’s dirty laundry. Let’s face it we love to be ‘in the know.’

Most of the things reported in those publications and television shows are about the negative things in people’s lives. The problem with the negativity we encounter, though, is that it stains other areas of our lives as well. It will show up in everything we do. We develop pessimistic views of life, and it infiltrates our thoughts. We begin to tear down others with our words instead of lifting them up. And we stop believing in the possibility of the impossible.

Too many of us have the stains of negativity on our lives. We need to come clean. But unlike aa dirty shirt, stains of negativity can’t easily be removed with Tide in a cold rinse. It takes the cleansing power of the Word of God. We will be faced with negative things in this society , but we don’t have to focus on them. Be optimistic on pupose. Turn away from negativity and allow the power of Jesus Christ to come in and cleanse your life.

Must See T.V.?

Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellence and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and heard from me saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you.(Phillipians 4:8-9)

So we as believers keep wringing our hands together wondering why the church seems to be making little to zero impact on the culture. Then we act shocked and amazed when we hear about Christian acting just like the world around us.

But that’s o.k., because when we grab a bowful of chili and a fistful of Fritos and plop down in front of T.V., all are worries temporarily go away.Yep, when we turn on the tube and cable-ize our cranium, life seems so much more tolerable.

Perhaps that is part of the problem.  Every year, additional ‘versions’ of the Bible come out, and every year they are read less and the same time, the average persons spends more and more time glued to the tube.

Let’s face it folks, Christians in America are cable clever and Scripture stupid.

So here is a little article  I came across that may motivate you check out the Bible more often :