Today, we shall touch a topic that is very fundamental in our journey with the Lord. We shall see God’s plan for your body.

Man, as we know him to be, is a spirit that has a soul and lives in a body. Man’s makeup serves a purpose and was created by God to fulfill that purpose for which it was created. You are a spirit, which possesses a soul and lives or is housed in a body made from the earth. With your spirit, you make contact with the spiritual realm, with your soul, you make contact with the soulish realm, and with your body, you make contact with the physical realm.

Your spirit which holds the source of your existence on earth doesn’t die. It was created to live eternally. That’s why even when this body drops dead the spirit returns to its place of judgement. Your spirit is where the new creation realities as a result of your union with Christ took place.

Salvation doesn’t begin from the soul or body but from the spirit. It was your spirit that got recreated in Christ. It was your spirit that got clothed with Christ. It was your spirit that became righteous, justified, and holy. It is because of this that the believer need not be afraid of his/her eternal status. I can declare boldly that I am righteous, justified, sanctified, and holy. God has taken residence in my spirit. He has tabernacled in my spirit. This is also true of you.

With your soul, you touch the various compartments of the soul – will, mind, and emotion. The soul didn’t get born again or recreated when you received Christ Jesus, hence, we’ve been given the mandate to have our minds renewed by God’s word, thereby causing the realities of Christ in our spirit to have a great impact on our souls.

There are certain brothers and sisters out there who live like men who have not seen the true Light, you can’t even tell if they are born again or not by the way they conduct themselves in the affairs of this life, this can be said to be the workings of an unrenewed mind. The souls of such men are yet to be held captive by God’s word. They have not brought their mind, will, and emotions to the place where it is subjected to the workings and dealings of the Spirit of God. 

The focus of the matter before us today is to look at the usefulness of the body in the eternal plan and purpose of God for our lives. This earth was created for humans to inhabit, spirits cannot exist here on earth, for that to happen they will need a body, an earthly body.

This body is a link between the spiritual realm and the earthly realm. It is in this body that we fulfill all of God’s plans and purpose for our lives. Looking at the usefulness of the body in fulfilling God’s plan and purpose, I will take a cue from the life of Jesus. 

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you didn’t desire, but a body you prepare for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings, you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am, it is written about me in the scroll – I have come to do your will, my God.” Hebrews 10:5-7 (NIV, EA)

God wasn’t pleased with the burnt offerings and sin offerings, for they were only types and shadows. They couldn’t take away the sins of man nor purge man from the consciousness of sin.

It was a man who committed the sin and it would take the death of a man for the sacrifice to be accepted. There was only One qualified to die for the sins of man and that was God Himself. God incarnated in the Man Christ Jesus, took the body of a man, and walked the face of the earth, with one purpose in mind, to fulfill the will of the One who sent Him, which is death for the sins of man. He knew this very well and preached this in advance to his disciples.

Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Matt 20: 28 (NIV)

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days”…but the temple he had spoken of was his body. John 2:19&21 (NIV)

The Word incarnated as a man to give His life as a ransom for man. Jesus understood that with the body He was given, He was to lay down His life as a propitiation for the sins of man. This singular act of obedience to the Father, gave man the opportunity to be reunited with his first love.

The apostle Paul revealed, “Since we have now been justified by his blood…” (Romans 5:9). So, Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets by living out in the body the things that were written of Him.

Brothers and sisters, what are we doing with our bodies? In his letter to the Church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul wrote “For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad”. 2Cor 5:10 (NIV)

Many have reduced their body to fun and pleasure, comfort and rest. These are good, and I expect that you keep your body in good condition, but is that all there is to your body? The Lord Jesus revealed to us, that what brings the greatest fulfillment in life, is to live in God’s plan and purpose. Your body was given to you to fulfill ONE THING – God’s plan.

Jesus knew why He was giving a body and He lived every day in that consciousness. Likewise, as God’s workmen, our bodies were given to us to do the Lord’s work. As I said earlier, our bodies were given to us to fulfill God’s plan, but after the fall of man, the natural response of the body became self-centered, always wanting to go against God’s will and plan.

But if we follow the way of the Apostle Paul in 1Cor 9:27 who said “…I discipline my body and bring it into subjection…”, we will realize that we have victory, not only in our spirits, but much more also, in our bodies. What use are we to the Lord’s work, if we only walk about knowing that we are men, redeemed by His blood, and yet we lack victory over the body? The Lord wants us to exercise victory over our bodies. This is a major requirement for all who are in God’s workforce. If we don’t allow God’s word to renew our minds so that we are brought to the place where we see the necessity to use our body for the Lord, our bodies will not be brought under subjection.

Brothers and sisters, many of the struggles that we are faced with today in the body, are as a result of the battles going on in our minds. The battle is in your mind, but the goal is for the body to be captured. Whoever wins the battle going on constantly in your mind has been given the opportunity to control your body. It can be either God or the devil. This battle in your mind is controlled by influence, and influence is what we expose our minds to.

We fail to do the Lord’s will in our body because we fail in our minds, we fail in our minds because we fail to allow the spirit to bring the mind to a place of obedience to the Spirit through God’s word. We could readily boast just like Peter before the Lord that we would die for him, even if all may fall away.

The Lord knows our substance, that there is no depth nor conviction in the words we have uttered. In His love and mercy, He invites us to tarry with him for a night, so that we can exercise ourselves for the day of testing, only to find that we choose rest over prayers, due to the fatigue of our bodies. How pitiful is the condition of such a men.

The Master’s words to Peter are also His words to you today “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt 26.41).

A willing spirit that cannot produce a willing flesh is not a victorious spirit. Hence, in prayer, we can exercise our spirit to gain dominance over the flesh to cause it to be willing. Otherwise, we cannot do the Lord’s work in our bodies. The Master had the same temptation to rest the body just like the others, He was the one with the most fatigued body, but we saw that the Lord had control over His body, He wouldn’t be asleep when he knew it was time to pray.

Brothers and sisters, if we are going to finish the Lord’s work or fulfill His plan and purpose for our lives, we will need to overcome the weakness of the flesh. We need willing bodies, just as we need willing spirits [the recreated spirit is always willing to God]. Bodies that will not choose sleep over prayers, rest over work. Bodies that are willing to sacrifice their comforts, to ensure that a sinner is saved and discipled.

There are many other things to discuss about the body, but I cannot go on here. We shall have another time to discuss the matter of using the body to honor the Lord, doing the Lord’s work, not using the body for sexual immorality, and other sins that men commit that are not befitting of the Lord’s people. Grace and peace to you in abundance.