Body Beautiful

Another chunk from Willard & Simpson which struck me, talking about what it means to offer our bodies as living sacrifices to God, and to honour God with our bodies

"...this means that we do not use our body to dominate or control others. This means different things to different people. For example, we do not present our body in ways that elicit sexual thoughts, feelings and actions from others. We do not try to be 'sexy'. We can be naturally attractive without that.

another example has to do with intimidation by means of our body. There are many aspects of this, from subtle hints to brute force. the most common forms of it are social: 'power dressing', sarcasm, and knowing looks and remarks. Having given up our body to God, we do not use it in these ways.

A final example is overwork... it is said that work is the new 'drug of choice'." (Revolution of Character p141)

The danger of taking just one section is that it doesn't say everything that the authors want to say, and can look a bit negative. However I was challenged by it: what is natural smartness and looking decent as a mark fo respect (rather than turning up looking like the contents of a skip), and what is manipulation? 'Sexy' clothing is almost the default setting for those who can get away with it - is that the idolised 'freedom of expression', or is there a wisdom in not dressing as an object of desire - after all, we are far more than that?

and you might think this is all a bit nit-picky and that some people should just chillax. But I'm guessing that when Jesus said 'seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness', he meant us to be rigorous about it. After all, if this is the most important thing, and we're only to do it half-heartedly, then what does that say about the rest of our discipleship? The atheletes training for the Olympics pay attention to every part of their lives to make sure they succeed: sleep, diet, exercise, rest, learning, equipment, practice etc. So if we want to 'succeed' as disciples....