How To Get The Perfect Body
When it comes to our health there is a never ending search for perfection. We are rarely content with how we look and how we feel. We could always lose an extra pound or two. It would be nice to slide into a dress just one size smaller. Who needs a six pack when you could have an eight pack?! And who wants to be sick anymore? Seriously. How can we modify our diet so that we avoid any and all potential illnesses. What other vitamins can we add to our collection? What other scientific breakthroughs are on the scene that will optimize my performance?
Let’s face it. The fountain of youth sounds refreshing, doesn’t it? We would love to arrive in a state of perfect health in every regard. It’s almost like we’re wired for it. And we are.
You see, even if we were to successfully obtain a certain level of perfect health, someday, you and I, along with everyone else, whether healthy or not, will die. Isn’t that depressing? Anyone motivated to exercise now? Yeah, me neither. But there is good news. Seriously. There really is good news in all this mess.
Here is the obvious: You and I have bodies. But, what you may not know (to be frank, you may not believe either), for those of us who are IN Christ, one day you and I will have new bodies. In fact these new bodies will be perfect beyond what we can comprehend.
There will be no more sickness! No more death!
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:4
Can you even imagine that? What health guru wouldn’t want to boast those claims?! But no matter how many health and fitness strategies you attempt to implement you’ll never avoid death, no less a minor cold.
What will these “perfect” bodies be like anyway? Well, we get a glimpse of that here:
“But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”...What is sown is perishable; what is raised is 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. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body...For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.”
1 Corinthians 15:35, 42-44, 53
Imperishable. Glory. Power. Spiritual. Immortality. How does that description sound? Not bad, huh?
And here is the good news, in order to attain this perfect body you won’t need to do any extra sit-ups, you won’t need to decrease your caloric intake, you won’t even need to increase your intensity on the elliptical machine. You won’t need to do anything. Well, actually, you can’t do anything. Trust in Jesus. That’s it.
In the health and fitness industry I encounter empty and misleading promises almost every day. Eat this. Don’t eat that. Work out more. Work out less. Health and fitness gurus will say almost anything to get your business (“results guaranteed!”). Yet, ironically the only guarantee is that a perfectly healthy body is not achievable in this life.
Don’t lose hope. Train your body with an aim toward health. But never lose perspective. That perfect body you’ve been dreaming about. You can have it. The world may promise it. Jesus makes it a reality.
“Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”
1 Timothy 4:7-8
