I recently met a businessman who has worked in a big city for much of his life. Now living on the South Carolina coast, he’s exercising more, he’s relaxing more, he’s enjoying the slower pace. “I feel like I’m adding years to my life,” he told me. Maybe so. Then again, maybe not – because not even the next minute is guaranteed.
Our culture is obsessed with health and longevity. Exercise programs, diets, vitamins, cosmetic surgery – we go to great lengths to delay the effects of aging. Not all of these things are bad. The Bible urges us to take care of our bodies. But it amazes me how much time, money and effort people spend on their physical wellbeing without any regard to their spiritual health.
Jesus said, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole word, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). In that same passage, He revealed the key to avoiding such a fate: “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it” (v. 25).
Be a follower of Jesus and eternal life is guaranteed. No diet plans, no exercise programs, yet in the end, every believer will get a new, perfect body. “So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. … And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven” (1 Corinthians 15: 42-44, 49).
Until then, I take heart in the words of 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, which says of my current form: “Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
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