The Battle for Your Body

Are you prone to self-worship or self-contempt?

Listen now: The Battle for Your Body – Series 8, Ep 4

So far in our current series, Fighting Your Spiritual Battles, we have talked about the unseen battle around us, how it began, and the battle for your mind. Today we’re going to talk about how the spiritual realm can impact your physical body. In fact, because we are embodied in the physical realm, all of our battles have some physical impact even when they involve our mind and spirit.

We used the book Love Thy Body by Nancy Pearcey as we prepared today’s episode. Her work and our own research will guide us as we look at three key areas:

• 3 Biblical Realities About Our Bodies

• How This Battle Shows Up in Our Bodies

• What We Can Do to Fight Back

3 Biblical Realities About Your Body

1. First reality: People are created in the image of God. Being created in the image of God has many implications, but for now we will focus on two of those. First, before sin entered the world, God’s original design for humans was to be a whole person with an integrated and unified mind, spirit, and body. The second implication of being created in God’s image is the human body has inherent value and dignity given by the creator.

2. Second reality: When sin entered the world, it fractured everything. It fractured the relationship between you and God, between you and creation, between you and other people, and between you and yourself. That fracturing spills over into external, physical battles. The enemy sees the way in which your sin is hurting you and others around you, and keys in on that to make it worse. Why? With the hopes of destroying God’s amazing and beautiful creatures and creation as a whole.

3. Third reality: Our spiritual battles are fought on the “turf” of our body. Everything that we experience spiritually is in some way also connected to the body in which we live because we are embodied creatures. The enemy of your soul is out to destroy both your soul and your body. We are living under the curse of the fall, and part of that curse falls upon your body. This means that all humans experience disease, illness, decay, physical limitations, and ultimately, death.

How This Battle Shows Up in Your Body

The enemy works in many different ways. During Jesus’ ministry he cast out demons so we know that they can and do possess people. In some cultures, there is very obvious and evident demonic activity. In other cases, the enemy works in and through very ordinary ways. He attacks your beliefs, your self-perception, and the way you view your physical body.

This is a very important point that we want to emphasize: There is a tendency, especially in American culture, to either worship your physical body or hate your physical body. Worship of the body shows up in wellness culture, cosmetic procedures, social media, and the pursuit of boundary-less sexual pleasure. Hatred of the body starts with feelings of self-contempt and can turn into addiction, self-harm, disordered eating, or appearance-altering irreversible surgeries.

In the Garden of Eden, the serpent tempted Eve through her body with fruit that was “pleasing to the eye and good to eat”. The enemy will use natural appetites to lure you away from God’s intended design for your life. God gives food as a gift, but you can use it as a drug. God gives sexual desire for your pleasure, but you can strip it of its sacred purpose and intention and reduce yourself or others to sexual objects.

Whether you worship or hate your body, you are playing into the enemy's hands. The end result is called defilement. That’s not a word that we use often, but it’s a word that is found over 800 times in the Bible. You don’t get to choose the consequences when you sin against your body; it’s built into God’s design. Whether you are abusing your body, or someone else’s body, you are defiling something that is meant to be honored, cherished, protected, and used for good.

What You Can Do to Fight Back

You can start by spending some time reflecting on how you view your body. Look for areas in your life where you may experience mind/body disconnection. Step back and evaluate areas of your life where you may have unknowingly adopted a postmodern or an “amoral” value system. Assess where and when you experience feelings of shame or defilement in regards to your body.

Next, a practical question to ask yourself is: “Am I either worshiping or hating my body?” And it might be helpful to consider what the antidotes are to those extremes.

The antidote to self-worship is self-denial - boundaries are your friend! Many people see the 10 commandments, or God’s guidelines in the Bible for how to live a life of wisdom, as trying to “take the fun out of living”, and it’s a normal tendency to push back on that and adopt a very pragmatic or hedonistic approach to fulfilling bodily desires. But without self-control, and no brakes to say “no” to yourself, you will likely be overrun by your body’s appetites.

The antidote to self-hatred is healthy stewardship - befriending your body! What form does your self-talk take? Do you talk to yourself the way you would talk to a friend that you love and care about? You can catch yourself when you are thinking about or speaking of your body with contempt, and instead, speak truth in love to yourself. Jesus loves you right now, just as you are. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. When you can recognize your negative self-talk, you can push back on the enemy’s schemes to lure you into self-destructive thoughts and habits.

Remember, your body is for the Lord; it is not your own. The good news is that you can be cleansed and forgiven when you have sinned with your body. When you confess your sin, “…he is faithful and just to forgive your sin and cleanse you from all unrighteousness,” 1 John 1:9.

The heart of the gospel is that Jesus died, in bodily form, on the cross and shed his physical blood to cover our sins. This draws attention to the importance and significance of your body; just as Jesus’ broken body is central to the gospel, so your body should be nurtured, cared for and lived in for God’s glory.