Choosing God's authority.

When I was running yesterday, I thought about how God made this body.  There is a way that our body functions. It has weaknesses, emotions, desires and impulses. It was made with those. We eat the food we want to eat, we treat people how we want to treat them and we live the way we want to live. We go the way we think is right toward the destination we set up with the map we create. All of this is influenced by the media and our culture and the other voices in our ears. We’re slaves to our desires and our fears. The whole journey becomes all about what we want.

But following what we want just follows the course of this physical body and sometimes, a lot of the time, what you want isn't what's good for you. Sometimes it feels like I’m forcing a body that naturally depreciates in value to appreciate and I’m doing it my way. Im just a human and I’m living this life for the first time, how am I supposed to know what is good for me? I don’t.

In God we have a stable foundation we can step onto as the ship we were trying so hard to keep afloat, directed by our own authority is slowly but surely sinking beneath our feet. We can step onto his destination, his journey, his instruction and his love story, written throughout the ages, which never changes.

We’ve seen the love that hung on a tree for us, ashamed and bleeding, experienced his grace and believe that it is true, not because of any good thing in us but because a God exists that is good. We’ve seen how this love stops us dead in our tracks and whips us right around towards the way of Christ, "the only way, the truth and the life.” When we respond to the awe we feel at such a thought, we decide to submit to his authority and leave aside our own, knowing his goodness and our numerous weaknesses. Submitting to God’s authority means that our body, and when I say body I mean the whole of it, the physical and the spiritual, works as it is meant to, to reach its intended purpose.

God created our body. He knows and fully understands how it functions mortally, he came down and experienced it himself, if we couldn’t otherwise believe him. He also knows how we are intended to function; physically, morally and spiritually so that while we physically depreciate, our soul is appreciating and becoming transformed. He’s instructed us on his intentions for our lives through his word and he’s given us the strength to carry these things through, for, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” He’s also given us the Spirit of truth, which helps us to remember God’s instructions and his promises, comforts us and helps us to recognise God’s truth amongst a billion voices telling us the world’s lies. In this way we might reach the intended purpose of our lives, who we were created to be, to further the Kingdom of God here and exist later in all the perfection that comes with eternity.

- evieroo