#2 – Your ‘earth-suit’ is of very little value.
Just so you know, even as marvelously beautiful and excellent as our father has made us, our physical bodies have no eternal import whatsoever. Their functions are to serve as casings for the real man (The Spirit Man) to effectively function on this here earth. I believe a good illustration would be the astronaut. Just like you’d need a space-suit or something if you were to travel to the moon, we need these ‘earth-suits’ to accomplish our missions on earth. Now wouldn’t you consider it rather annoying, if you were a president and you sent these groups of individuals to outer-space to help solve a major problem that would adversely affect all of mankind if not speedily tackled, only to have these emissaries (who are fully aware of the grave implications of the mission's failure) forget their sole mission and begin squabbling over how someone else’s space-suit fits better than theirs’, or how another’s has glitter and ribbons on it while theirs’ doesn’t, and then some come up with the fact that they wish their helmet screens were tinted a different color and weren’t just transparent because that’s a bit too plain and boring, etc.’
Has anything sounded more redundant?
Here are people with a huge responsibility on their shoulders and they utterly disregard how important their singleness of mind and utmost concentration are to solving the challenge is. What’s worse? They are letting themselves get distracted by something as irrelevant as their appearance in SPaCe!!!
Perhaps it might have helped if they considered the possibility that no one really cares what they wear out there.
And then even if someone was idle enough to (for whatever reason) and kept griping about their space-suits not being stylish enough, it shouldn’t change anything because they would bear in mind who sent them and will remember that their being provided with a suit was for it to assist them in attaining their goals and not enter 'Space Fashion Weekly'.
However, this is exactly what we do often. We forget that our purpose on earth is to live a life fully infused and enveloped with our love for Christ to the extent that all can be impacted by the force and power of it! The purpose is not to endlessly get to ogle ourselves in the mirror (or be ogled at for that matter), to have a million followers on Instagram & Twitter, to have the opposite sex eating out of our palms, or whatever other ‘profit’ (depending on your definition of the word) our physical appearance may get us. That is not the point! The Spirit man is the ‘big-deal’ and our flesh is just the functional container. Just as no amount of accessories and trimmings put on the space-suit should supersede the importance of it achieving its primary function (which is to safeguard the life of the space traveler and enable him or her fulfill their mission out there); the body should never become so prioritized that it no longer enables you fulfill your God-given purpose but instead distracts you from it.
Personally, I used to have mega issues with what I perceived to be a painfully obvious lack of prominent hips. Sometimes I’d even let it affect the way I related (or if I related at all) with people. For instance I might shy away from being friends with someone because I had noted the sort of girls he was friends with and was convinced I couldn’t make the bar. You know why? ‘Cus they were all amply endowed in the hip/bum region and I wasn’t. What’s worse, some of them were years younger than me so there definitely had to be a problem, I was certain of it. Maybe I had stunted growth? Maybe I was malnourished (which was kind of a ludicrous thought because I very much enjoy food)? Maybe I wasn’t praying hard enough?!!
There’s no thought that didn’t cross my mind.
I used to ask God at the start of each year to enlarge my hips and I’d promise to do this or that in exchange. I can’t go into the multitude of things that were wrong with my ‘prayer’, but what’s most important to note is that I’m pretty sure my motives were all messed up and at the time, I definitely wasn’t praying according to His will. Because I chose to perceive it to be some ‘deformity’ of sorts, I was convinced everyone else was thinking just like me and my perceptions were birthed by ignoring all the other wonderful traits I have been blessed with (a pretty face, nice hair and nails, good skin…) and focusing heavily on what I imagined I didn’t have but needed. In my mind, there were errors in my construction and so there I was asking God to improve on what He’d already stamped perfection. Needless to say, I was wrong; but when I came to the full understanding of how the beauty that really matters is the one that springs from my Spirit, and how the opinion of men regarding my appearance have nothing on what my creator has said about me – His masterpiece – I began to grow in and strengthen my God-imbued confidence, and my perspective changed. Now this isn’t saying that trying to improve on your appearance is a problem (please, who doesn’t like make-overs every now and then?!) This is saying that:
Has anything sounded more redundant?
Here are people with a huge responsibility on their shoulders and they utterly disregard how important their singleness of mind and utmost concentration are to solving the challenge is. What’s worse? They are letting themselves get distracted by something as irrelevant as their appearance in SPaCe!!!
Perhaps it might have helped if they considered the possibility that no one really cares what they wear out there.
And then even if someone was idle enough to (for whatever reason) and kept griping about their space-suits not being stylish enough, it shouldn’t change anything because they would bear in mind who sent them and will remember that their being provided with a suit was for it to assist them in attaining their goals and not enter 'Space Fashion Weekly'.
However, this is exactly what we do often. We forget that our purpose on earth is to live a life fully infused and enveloped with our love for Christ to the extent that all can be impacted by the force and power of it! The purpose is not to endlessly get to ogle ourselves in the mirror (or be ogled at for that matter), to have a million followers on Instagram & Twitter, to have the opposite sex eating out of our palms, or whatever other ‘profit’ (depending on your definition of the word) our physical appearance may get us. That is not the point! The Spirit man is the ‘big-deal’ and our flesh is just the functional container. Just as no amount of accessories and trimmings put on the space-suit should supersede the importance of it achieving its primary function (which is to safeguard the life of the space traveler and enable him or her fulfill their mission out there); the body should never become so prioritized that it no longer enables you fulfill your God-given purpose but instead distracts you from it.
#3 – Beauty’s Definition is in the Bible…not your brain or the media.
There’s no thought that didn’t cross my mind.
I used to ask God at the start of each year to enlarge my hips and I’d promise to do this or that in exchange. I can’t go into the multitude of things that were wrong with my ‘prayer’, but what’s most important to note is that I’m pretty sure my motives were all messed up and at the time, I definitely wasn’t praying according to His will. Because I chose to perceive it to be some ‘deformity’ of sorts, I was convinced everyone else was thinking just like me and my perceptions were birthed by ignoring all the other wonderful traits I have been blessed with (a pretty face, nice hair and nails, good skin…) and focusing heavily on what I imagined I didn’t have but needed. In my mind, there were errors in my construction and so there I was asking God to improve on what He’d already stamped perfection. Needless to say, I was wrong; but when I came to the full understanding of how the beauty that really matters is the one that springs from my Spirit, and how the opinion of men regarding my appearance have nothing on what my creator has said about me – His masterpiece – I began to grow in and strengthen my God-imbued confidence, and my perspective changed.
- ·Your appearance becoming more important than your purpose in life is an issue.
- ·The motive behind wanting to alter any part of you should be thoroughly checked and judged by scripture and your heart.
- ·You should take care of the container you’ve been given and just like we wouldn’t go around bashing a hired Lamborghini or spraying graffiti on a Limousine, I don’t believe we should run around cutting and scraping and making a canvas out of the bodies we’ve been given temporarily.
- ·The primary focus is the Spirit man! The need for you to keep
the body pure and undefiled, in good and healthy shape constantly, still boils down to your Spiritual functionality. 1 Corinthians 3:17 talks about how we are God’s Holy temple and must remain undefiled or shall be destroyed. To defile means to make foul or dirty or unclean; to pollute, taint or debase; to violate the chastity of, or to sully – as a person’s reputation. This shows that defiling our bodies can be done in a variety of ways; we can defile our bodies through what we consume – food, movies, books, magazines, songs, conversations, shows, etc. We can defile it through sex (outside of the context God created it for – a Christ centered marriage), we can defile it via our words, we can defile it by what we put in it – silicon, drugs, chemicals, etc. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says we are the temple of the Holy Ghost and are NOT OUR OWN. Enough of the silly lie that many have bought because its convenient; “It’s my body/my life so I can do whatever I want with it!” This scripture tells us that our bodies are considered the dwelling place for the Holy spirit once we accept Christ, and that even these bodies we think we own are of God and do not belong to us. God has the copyright on us! When we don’t take care of His stuff the way He instructs they should be taken care of, destruction is very (gulp) imminent.
Think on these things. :)
xxx, Kwiksie.
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