My body is not my own—it is a home, a dwelling for the living Spirit of God, His Holy Spirit. I do not own my body now that I recommitted my life to Jesus Christ and reconfirmed my faith after years of living like I wanted to.
I abused my body for many years, beginning in high school—to be liked, accepted, to fit in and to gain a man’s attention in hopes that he’d love me and finally fill the void left in my heart and soothe the pain I was carrying.
I believed in God and grew up in the Church but I didn’t truly know God and accept his deep, abiding love for me, the work done on the cross to cleanse me of sin. I claimed faith but I lived in complete and utter sin and destruction, abusing by body with sex (sometimes unwanted sex), drugs, alcohol - binging to the point of poisoning my body, food - binging to the point of sickness and pain and generally lived outside the will of God and His command to love yourself and one another as He loves us.
Loving yourself as God loves you is staying away from sin especially sexual sin that abuses your body and soul from sex outside the covenant of marriage. The Holy Word of God proclaims our bodies to be living temples for the Holy Spirit; after we profess our faith, the Holy Spirit is given to us and lives in us and we are not only washed clean of sin but now ruled and guided by the Spirit of God.
The affects of abusing my body and living in sexual sin grew rampant until I came to the point when I got on my knees and cried out to God. I recommitted my life to Christ and was reborn through my recommittal to faith after i walked away as a teenager and struggled to maintain throughout adulthood despite my efforts to remain active in Church. But my body and the sin it was tempted to partake in overcame my desire to please God and honor both God and His Holy temple.
Road to Recovery
I made a choice in 2017 to attend Celebrate Recovery and abstain from sex, alcohol, drugs and overeating—thus ridding my body of everything that was slowly killing it and keeping me far from a close intimate union with God. I haven’t done abstinence or sobriety perfectly or even close to it; I’ve tripped up, relapsed and returned to the Lord through repentance. I had to see the destruction of my past ways for what they were and accept that the life I want to lead in Christ far outweighs the sinful pleasures that used to overtake me.
I encourage you to take a second look at how you’re using your body for sex to get attention, gain love or keep a partner, how you’re using body image in ways that make up for an inadequate sense of self-esteem that’s meant to come from God, to rethink abortion and sex outside of marriage, to reconsider the continual use and abuse of alcohol and drugs and food to the point that your body succumbs to the abuse it’s been susceptible to.
Lastly and most poignantly, I urge you to rethink the whole God thing, and like I did, give Jesus a chance regardless of what you might think based on predisposed opinions, beliefs or judgments (all of which I held at one point even as a Catholic). You can make the conscious choice to come (or return) to God and be set free from the sin that entraps you and entangles you with a life that is destructive and slowly killing you.
There’s a much holier, freer way to live than being enslaved by the lust, greed, desires and addictions of the body and mind.
ticket to freedom in christ
Christianity is not a life of captivity and restriction; it’s a life of freedom, joy and fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ and the love God has for us which is freely given if we choose to receive it. It is enough to fill every hole in your heart that ties you to a life that destroys the plans and purpose God has for you.
The ruling to overturn Roe vs Wade is part of God’s plan—His plan to protect the sanctity of human life—life that belongs to Him and isn’t supposed to be terminated before the miracle of birth. And it’s our opportunity to reflect on how we’ve been living and whether that’s really working for us.
God loves us despite our sins and He is waiting for us to come to Him with every heavy burden, mistake and failure that makes us feel unlovable and unworthy of His merciful love and care.
If you’ve never accepted Christ Jesus into your life and allowed him to enter your heart and forgive you of your sins, today is your opportunity to do so. He hears your weary cries before you even speak.
If you do decide to ask Jesus into your heart today and become a Christian or recommit your life to Him, please share this victory with someone you trust—if you don’t have anyone you trust then share it with me. I would love to be able to celebrate this momentous and life-changing choice with you!
“Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.” But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.”
~1 Corinthians 6:15-20 NLT
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”
~John 10:10 ESV