(Continued from Part 1)

               Physical health should be something that enables us to love God and our neighbors more fully.  Self-caused limitations created out of poor stewardship of physical health can limit our ability to care for family and participate productively in community. For example, a lifestyle with overindulgence in food which leads to heart disease or uncontrolled diabetes could prevent one from productive labor to care for one’s family financially.  On the other end, over-emphasis on personal physical health can be a detriment to caring for our family if one is spending so much time on physical self-care that their family is neglected.  Physical health can therefore be an empowerment to the higher goals or a hindrance, even an idol. 

               Growing our minds and balancing our emotions deserve recognition as part of our stewardship of the gift of life as well.  Greater knowledge or greater wisdom may serve not only us but those under our care or under our leadership.  A greater knowledge of God enables greater serve to His purposes.  A greater knowledge of the created world enables more accurate and likely more productive benefitting others.  A greater wisdom in reasoning through the dynamics of life enables fruit for not only self but for multitudes of others around us.  Similar to the possibilities for a downside to emphasizing physical health, there may be downsides to pursuing intellectual health also.  Knowledge for the sake of knowledge alone or for the sake of using that knowledge as power over others can turn this into sinful attitudes and behaviors.  The pursuit of knowledge may become an idol and this possibility must be guarded against.

                Growing our minds and our bodies, again, cannot come at the expense of our spirits.  Idolizing the fitness of our bodies or minds will take away from that which is eternal.  Loving God and our neighbor cannot be in mind or in body alone.  Our physical bodies and the physical minds they care will come to an end at some point.  In the Bible we read that physical care of our bodies have some value, but the greater care is for the spirit in its walk before God (I Timothy 4:8).  Our walk with others in relationship is tied up also with this walk with God.  Yet, even the spiritual emphases can become an idol.  The pharisees were instructed by Jesus to stop disobeying the commandment to honor father and mother when they gave their inheritance to temples rather than to care for parents.  When one moves into the realm of believing only the spiritual has any value but not the physical world, one moves into philosophy, particularly Greek philosophy rather than theology.  This contrasts with the “new bodies” in the ”new heavens” we will receive and will experience respectively in the end times. 

               From here we can evaluate what virtues to practice in how they serve this higher goal of loving God and loving our neighbor.  We can ask if something has become an idol in our lives and overtaken the higher goals.  Questions include:

1.            Has physical fitness become an inordinate part of our lives?

2.            Has control of food become an obsession that is causing more harm to family or others?

3.            Has study of physical reality distracted or distorted from pursuing a knowledge and wisdom of spiritual reality?

4.            Has a pursuit of knowledge about God overtaken relationship with God and with His children?

We can ask in what way is something serving the higher goals.

1.            Does your physical fitness enable present relationship with God and others?

2.           Does your physical fitness serve to steward one’s health for the good of not only self but others? Long life with family? Less money spent in the future on health care?  More ability to be with family?

3.            Does your  healthy eating do likewise in stewarding health?

4.            Does your knowledge about God lead to a better relationship with God and with other mankind?

               The virtues are then rooted in pursuit of the higher goals of loving God and loving neighbor.  One should view oneself as a steward of a gift of life that is meant to not only benefit yourself but serve God and others.  Caring for one’s body becomes a responsibility but should not become an idol.  Pursuing knowledge and soundness of mind equips one to serve God more truly and mankind more productively.  Pursing spiritual health as a priority, but not exclusively, enables one to use the physical fitness and the mental fitness to serve God and others more truly.  Walking each day with the virtues inherent in stewardship leads to a more abundant life for self and for others.

Next in this Series… “To Be Determined”