What I mean, brothers, is that what is made of flesh and blood cannot share in God's Kingdom, and what is mortal cannot possess immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:50)
Caring for the body is not wrong. Physical body is God's gift that has to be appreciated, thanked for, and taken care. But focusing our whole life around caring this physical body is not God's intention of giving us this body. When our lives are centralized on adorning physical beauty and attending to the physical needs, we can easily be diverted from our higher purpose, our spiritual means.
We are created with body and soul. But people tend to care for the body mostly. They feed the body with healthy supplements, they train the body to gain strengths and endurance, they shape the body into beautiful and balanced composition, they treat the defects and aim for perfection, and they maintain the fitness level of this physical body. It seems that what the physical body needs are all fulfilled, especially with advancement in science and technology. But what about our other component of life? The soul...
Ironically, whereas people live longer, healthier, and stronger, their spirits are not better than those living in old times, or even worse sometimes. Where are the love, gentleness, wisdom, solidarity, care, patience, self-control, and other inner beauties? Yes, human outer beauties are much better these days due to a lot care being given on them. But the inner beauty deteriorates as the time goes by. People are becoming more and more individualistic, selfish, uncaring, impatient, uncontrolled, exploitative, cold, and unloving. The clearest example is deterioration of spiritual life. Nobody cares whether God exists these days. Nobody cares much if their actions are unethical. Nobody attempts to realize whether their lifestyle harms other people and the environments.
These days many people leave the church, and revert their faith, especially in the western countries. These countries were once the center of mission efforts to reach out unbelievers. Now, they are some of those who need to hear about the Gospel.
Paul said that what is made of flesh and blood cannot share in the God's Kingdom. Our pretty much adorned physical body cannot enjoy eternal life. This temporary body will age and decay. When we die, it will perish. So, why do we put too much care on things that will perish? We should rather put more efforts to pursue things that will last forever, shouldn't we?
Let's live this life with a new purpose. Adorn your inner beauties, practice love, compassion, and patient, befriend with everybody and be sensitive to the needs of others, be faithful to God and maintain strong relationship with Him, and be friendly to the environments. Balance your physical and spiritual needs, and you shall live a fuller life, a more purposeful life.
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