4:119 – Is It Making You Better or Ill?

#faithbites #faithjourney ill

Setting

I love sweets. Give me some chocolate and I’m a happy man. I know that the excess sweets don’t make me better and in fact make me ill in the long run, but I feel good in the short run. I was inspired by “Just Like A Pill”, a song by Pink, to write this #faithbites. The lyric that caught my attention is, “… just like a pill/’stead of makin’ me better,/you keep makin’ me ill.” How many things in our lives that we go after make us feel better but are truly making us ill? What are we putting into our bodies or our lives that aren’t helping?

Today’s Questions: How does God’s work make you better and not ill? What can you do to ensure that you are on the right path, even if short-term life is harder?

Scripture

• 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 – Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
• 1 Corinthians 3:17 – If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
• 1 Corinthians 6:12 –  “I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.

Reflection

1 Corinthians is pretty revealing how we should act and live. We are God’s temple and what we do to ourselves reflects him. And yes, we can do whatever we want but at what price? How do we know what is beneficial and what isn’t? God tells us what is pleasing to Him. 1 Thessalonians 2:4, says “But just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.”

We need to think about what we put into our bodies and how we use our power and gifts to praise him. It’s an easy message to hear, a harder message to live by.

As we close today, what actions are you willing to take to change your life. How can you do things that will make you better and not ill?

Prayer

Father God, you are clear on how to live. Our sin makes us do things to your temple that make us ill and not better. Today we pray for clarity and direction to avoid things that make us ill and strive for those that make us better in you. In your name, Amen.