Honoring God in Our Bodies

//Kenneth E. Hagin

The church at Corinth was in one of the most immoral cities of its day. Unfortunately, the immorality and sin of that city got into the church. In an effort to correct what was happening, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said, “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19–20).

In these verses, Paul reminds us that our body belongs to the Lord and that we are to glorify Godly not allowing our body to sin. After we get saved, however, our flesh often wants to go right on doing the things it did beforehand. But it’s up to each one of us to keep our body under control.

Faith Nugget

Our Helper Before Jesus ascended into  Heaven, He told His disciples that a “Comforter” would come and be with them. “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16). We later see in Scripture how the Holy Spirit came to the earth and dwelt inside of believers (Acts 2:1–4). The word Comforter in John  chapter 14 means “helper.” We are no longer helpless, because the Holy Spirit—our Helper—lives inside of us. As a helper, the Holy Spirit won’t do the job Himself; His job is to help us. We are the custodians of our  bodies and we have to take the initiative to deal with our flesh. When we make a move to do  that, the Greater One living inside of us will help us overcome our flesh.

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Even Paul, the apostle who wrote half of the New Testament, said in First Corinthians 9:27, “I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.” This great man of God—who did more single-handedly to spread the Gospel than any other person—also had to keep his body under. We are not any different from Paul. Our body naturally wants to do things that are not right. But we must control those fleshly desires and not give in to them. We must not let our body rule us; we must rule our body.

The Battle of the Flesh

Our body, however, isn’t who we really are. We are a spirit being who possesses a soul and lives in a body. If we were just a physical being, Paul would have said, “I keep myself under and bring myself into subjection.” Instead, he said, “I keep my body under.”

When we talk about keeping the body under, folks usually think of sexual sins. While those are included,
they are only a part of it. Our spirit being was made new when we were born again, but our body still has the unrenewed influence of the old Adamic nature.

Our flesh can have the attitude, “If you hit me, I’ll hit you. If you spit on me, I’ll spit on you.” If we don’t control our flesh, before we know it, we’ll be spitting on someone or hitting someone. The flesh will do
whatever it wants to do if we don’t rule it. And one member we have to gain mastery over is our tongue. James 3:8 calls it an unruly member. The tongue can be the hardest member of our body to control.

Living Pure Before God

Paul told the Corinthians to glorify God in their bodies. In his first letter to them, he instructed them not to join themselves to a harlot or, in other words, not to commit sexual sins. Paul talked more about this in Galatians chapter 5. In verse 19 he said, “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. . . .”

The first four works of the flesh listed in this verse have to do with sexual sins. While we understand
adultery and fornication, some people may not know what uncleanness is. When the Bible speaks of “uncleanness,” it is talking about homosexuality and lesbianism.

We can get a better understanding of this in Romans 1:24: “Wherefore God also gave them up to UNCLEANNESS through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves.” Men lusting after men and women lusting after women is called uncleanness in Scripture. Paul—prompted
by the Holy Spirit—is telling us to glorify God by not permitting our body to commit these acts of uncleanness.

When the Holy Spirit tells us to glorify God in our body, that means we can do it. God wouldn’t ask us to do something we couldn’t do. If He did, we could accuse Him of being unjust.

No Sickness Permitted Here!

God is not glorified in our body when we are sick. Satan is the author of sickness and disease. When Jesus was on the earth, He destroyed the works of the devil (1 John 3:8) and went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil (Acts 10:38).

We are the custodian of our body, and it’s up to us to enforce God’s healing Word. We do this by exercising
our authority in Christ over any sickness or disease that tries to attach itself to our body. God holds us responsible for our body. The Holy Spirit dwells in us and helps us oversee that body.

When we make our body line up with the Word of God and accept the Holy Spirit’s help to do it, we will be victorious and glorify God in every area of our life.
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(Editor’s Note: This article was adapted from a message Kenneth E. Hagin taught in Miami, Florida, on January 24, 1994.)