God is concerned with our health, perhaps more than we understand. I don't perfectly understand how and what He thinks of my health habits, but one thing that I do know is that it's important to Him that all of us should take good care of our bodies. Why? It's because He dwells in it.
Paul gives us this sobering truth in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20:
"Don't you realise 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 honour God with your body."
Although he was talking to the Corinthian believers in the context of avoiding and fleeing sexual sin, he gave us a truth that we should all take to heart. We should all honour God with our bodies in all the right ways, and not just by avoiding sexual sin. We should remember that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit.
And that brings us to the question posed in the title of this article. Yes, burgers and sweets taste good and are probably a favourite to many. I mean, who doesn't like the taste of juicy meat, cheese, lettuce and tomatoes sandwiched in a great-tasting bun, followed by either a sip of cold, fizzy cola and a bite of something sweet? Honestly, many of us want to have that once in a while, including me.
No, this article won't stop anybody from eating such foods. I'm not opposed to the foods mentioned, because I personally like those. But what we're trying to understand here is that while your diet depends on you, your body does not belong to you anymore because God bought it with a price and the Holy Spirit dwells in it.
All things are permissible
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10:23 that all things are permissible for us to do, but not all things build us up. We can do pretty much anything that's not sin, and that includes stuffing out diets with all kinds of food – fatty, sugar-rich, sodium-loaded and cholesterol-high if we want to – but not all of it will help. More so if we realise that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit.
We all understand that fat food increase our chances of heart disease. We all know that a focus on meat sans vegetables will give us a lot of protein minus the other necessary nutrients. We all know that tons of sugar equals diabetes and other health problems.
And we all know that when we're sick or diseased, it's harder to serve the Lord compared to when we're in perfect health.
Eat to glorify God
Friends, I don't want us to be dull and tasteless when it comes to food, but I don't want us to be sick either. We should all learn to eat to the glory of God. Paul encourages us, "So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)
