TAKE CARE OF GOD’S HOUSE

therefore glorify God in your body... – 1Co 6:20

1Co 6:19 tells us clearly that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. God, who used to dwell in the Holy of Holies in the Old Testament temple, now chooses to dwell permanently in our body – warts and all. This sacred and reverential view of the body is unique to biblical Christianity.

It is this understanding of the Body that Paul sought to impress upon the Corinthian Believers, (1Co 3:16; 6:15-16; 2Co 6:16). Your body is not yours, it was bought with a price, and a very high one at that: the Blood of Jesus!

Therefore, we’re meant to take care of it for the Master. Some believers are of the belief that, since this body is destined for destruction and decay, it’s to be used to the extreme.

Firstly, that’s ungodly stewardship. Do we condone air pollution and the dumping of industrial waste into our waterways since “the world and everything in it will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10 BBE)? No, we don’t.

Secondly, the Body is our earth-suit. It is to us what a spacesuit is to an astronaut. Without it, we can no longer stay on this planet. No matter how anointed, loaded and promising a destiny is, if the body crumbles, that’s the end. Earth has a strict “No Ghosts Allowed” policy.

The Human Body is probably the most complicated machine on Earth, and it deserves more attention than that 300,000-dollar car we’re drooling over.

Neglect of the Body – unhealthy diets, lack of adequate sleep, lack of exercise, etc. – isn’t a sign of spirituality, it’s a sign of lack of understanding. Some Pastors boast of sleeping less than 2 hours a day (... and we still wonder how some churches plunge into chaos from terrible leadership decisions).

We’re supposed to burn on for God, not suffer BURN OUT because of Kingdom work!

Take care of God’s House. It adds quality to your life, it serves as a healthy witness to the world, it blesses your loved ones and – in a direct sense – it glorifies God.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

BODY THINGS

therefore glorify God in your body... – 1Co 6:20

Your body – that handsome/beautiful thing that looks back at you when you look in the mirror – is a gift from God to you. Not one square inch of it is from the Devil. It was “beautifully and wonderfully made”: crafted preciously by the Maker Himself as a showpiece of His exquisite workmanship. There is no body (pun intended) on earth like you.

Every beautiful and desirable thing in your body was put there intentionally by God for His own glory. Jam 1:17 says “EVERY good gift and every perfect gift is from above,” and Rev 4:11 tells us that that stunning craftsmanship you call your body was created to glorify God.

It is the Devil, not God, that hates the Body. That is why he seeks to corrupt its desires; that is why a tell-tale sign of demonic possession in a person is self-mutilation and affliction of the body, (see Mk 5:5; 9:22; 1Ki 18:28). That is why those who have dabbled into the occult will tell you affliction of the Body is the Devil’s rule of thumb.

In all Devil-inspired religions we have today, the Body is always the ‘scapegoat’ to explain their inability to live holy. In Christianity, however, the body is not the enemy, but is the temple of the Holy Spirit (2Cor 6:19)!

 It is quite revealing of God’s nature, that Leviticus – replete with rules, rituals and regulations as it is – gives no room for ONE act of mutilation.

It’s only the Devil, who did not (and cannot) create your body, that will ask you to harm it in the name of religion or piety.

Don’t look at the mirror with loathing, look at it with gratitude. Your body is like your child, it will always ask to be pampered ignoring the consequences; but what it needs is DISCIPLINE, not EXORCISM. Under the control of a regenerate mind, the body will be a vessel of righteousness: giving glory to God and being of great use to His Kingdom on Earth.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

PROPER MORTIFICATION

Biblical Christianity is not a religion; indeed, it is the direct antithesis of all the manmade, hell-inspired religions we have in the world today. So, it should be disturbing if there seems to be no distinction between their beliefs and ours.

An example is in the doctrine of Mortification-based holiness. Scriptures does ask us to “Mortify” our members. But the demonization of the physical body, resulting from the twisting of this word, just as – and actually in conjunction with – “sarx”, is a hallmark of cults and false religions right form the time of the first Apostles.

Many of the Church’s canonised ‘saints’ attained that appellation from their reputation of being ‘holy’ through the subjecting of the flesh.

One was said to have “performed Penance by chanting 20 psalters accompanied by 300,000 lashes over six days”; another had self-afflicted penances of “vigils, fasts, frequent flagellations and the use of a hairshirt”. A woman flogged herself thrice a day and lived on nothing except Communion elements, and another girl ‘saint’ got paralysed through her self-flagellation.

While we may consider these examples extreme, or seek to distance ourselves from those who venerate them, can we claim to be totally cleansed from this religious mindset?

When we equate humour or boisterousness with carnality, or rank a Believer/church’s spirituality based on their gravity of conduct, it evinces a wrong perception of sanctification and holiness.

It’s interesting that Scripture didn’t ask us to “crucify the flesh”! Gal 5:24 says “they that are Christ’s HAVE CRUCIFIED the flesh ...” And Rom 6:6 says “our old man IS CRUCIFIED with Him...”

The key to biblical mortification and holy living is the revelation that the flesh has ALREADY been crucified (with Christ). This is why holiness is IMPOSSIBLE outside of biblical Christianity, but DEMANDED in it. Other belief systems may venerate their saints/’holy’ men in their ability to flagellate the physical flesh, but like Paul rightly pointed out in Col 2:23 “These things look like wisdom with their self-imposed worship, false humility, and harsh treatment of the body. But they have no value for holding back the constant desires of your corrupt nature.” (GW)

Only Biblical Christianity can that.

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

“ALL SARX IS NOT THE SAME SARX”

 “...RIGHTLY DIVIDING the word of truth.” – 2Ti 2:15

The Apostle Paul may not have had the “Sarx controversy” in mind when he told the Corinthian church, “All sarx is not the same sarx (“All flesh is not the same flesh”; 1Co 15:39), but his choice of words has become of very real significance to us today.

During sermons, we are often asked to “crucify the flesh”, but I never saw anyone put up their hands to ask, “which flesh?”

This lack of distinction and clarification has not only led to frustration among God-loving Believers, but actual heresy in some segments of the Church.

There is the obvious “flesh” that refers to our corpus: our body, the physical ‘meat’ with which we see, feel, taste or otherwise interact with the physical universe.

Then there’s the “flesh” that refers to the carnal, un-renewed MIND. (Of course, “flesh” also has many other meanings in the NT).

We should know that it is of great advantage to the Devil that we focus our energies on our body and neglect the mind. The physical body is not your enemy, your mind is. If the body is the source of our sinful predilections, then the ICU of hospitals should contain the holiest people on earth.

When Paul beseeched us to be living sacrifices (Rom 12:1,2), he qualified it by asking us to be “transformed BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND”.

Some persons, for example, have tried to suppress lust through dry fastings and literal flogging of the body, only to find the monster raise its ugly head days later. It never occurs to them that maybe they’ve been flogging the wrong “sarx”. 

Let’s learn from our Lord’s teaching (see Mk 721-23) and focus on the right “sarx”; when we do that, the body will follow.

 “Think over these things I am saying [understand them and grasp their application], for the Lord will grant you full insight and understanding in everything.” – 2 Timothy 2:7 (AMP)

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN

THE ‘SARX’ CONTROVERSY

“All flesh is not the same flesh:” – 1Co 15:39

It’s not very often that the fight among academic Bible scholars is spilled into the streets. They usually restrict their queer quarrels to scholarly journals, reviews and colloquiums. So, I found it interesting when a certain Greek scholar made public his reservations with the translation methodology of some modern Bible versions.

In this case, it was with the Holman Christian Standard Bible and the issue was with their translation of a rather unexceptional Greek word: “SARX”.

But what is “sarx” and (more importantly) why should we care? While it does sound exotic, it’s actually one of the more common words in the New Testament; occurring over 150 times and in almost each book.

Here’re four out of the five times Matthew used “sarx” in his Gospel:

...Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for SARX and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. (Mt 16:17)

...For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one SARX (Mt 19:5)

And except those days should be shortened, there should no SARX be saved… (Mt 24:22)

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the SARX is weak. (Mt 26:41)

From the above, we can see that “sarx” apparently means “flesh”. But we also notice that “flesh” in one verse is different from the “flesh” in the other. 2Ti 2:15 tells us to “Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, RIGHTLY DIVIDING the word of truth.”

This “rightly dividing”, lacking in many Bible studies today, has caused no small error in theologies and doctrine.

When studying the Word, we must let each word in each verse determine its meaning based on its immediate context. Transposing the meaning of the same word in another verse, or giving the same meaning to ALL incidences of that word will only lead to confusion at best, or heresy at worst.

Let’s not be like that Russian computer which, when asked to translate Mt 26:41 (quoted above), replied in Russian “The whisky is agreeable, but the meat has gone bad”. J

AMEN.

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

GREG ELKAN