A Meditation on the Spirit’s Redemption of Your Body

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Have you ever woken up sweaty from a nightmare, your heart pounding? It was just your imagination, but your body physically reacted as if it’s real. This happens because of the powerful connection between your imagination (your mind) and your body. Your body responds physiologically to the thoughts and images in your head, putting your central nervous system in a fight or flight or freeze state and resulting in physical changes such as altered heart rate and muscle tension. This happens with our anxiety and frustration and anger and insecurities because of our imagination in our mind. 

But the opposite can also happen through our biblically guided imagination. And the more you practice that, because of neural plasticity, neurons that fire together wire together — the more you use your biblically guided imagination to imagine/envision/feel God‘s Spirit and God‘s love in your body — the more you will mentally integrate/connect your body with God’s transcendent spiritual reality in every moment. 

Too often we adopt a very unbiblical and unchristian view of our body somehow being separate from or at least unrelated to our soul and our salvation. But the Bible teaches that your body is actually a vital part of your eternal soul. God created your body when he created you (Ps 139:13-16) and your body is a key part of your eternal salvation and redemption in Christ. 

Romans 8:22-24 (NIV)

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. 

Right now you have the Spirit in your body, but there is also a Genesis 3 kind of groaning that knows this world and your body and your life is not all the glory and beauty that it was meant to be. You are awaiting restoration and resurrection. But right now God’s Spirit within your body is the firstfruits of that new creation.

You are your body — you are more than just your body but you are not less than your body – and your body is part of the eternal you. 

Philippians 3:20-21 (ESV)

And right now your body is a holy (1 Cor 6:11) temple of God‘s Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19)! So really more than any other worldview or religion, Christians of all people should embrace their body right now as an important part of who they are forever! But also as a glorious, very real presence/embodiment of God’s Spirit. God’s physical temple. God‘s presence on earth. And to imagine/envision/feel that into your body in every present moment.

Christian meditation is to re-integrate your body with your mind and soul. Sensing your God-created body as an important part of who you are. And recalibrate your body with the reality of God‘s presence in you and around you in every moment. 

Acts 17:28 (ESV)

“In him we live and move and have our being.”

So envision/feel into your body an awareness of God‘s intimate presence with you and infinite love for you by using your biblically guided imagination. Because the present moment is always the moment when we connect with God. He’s the I AM. He is always in the present tense in the present moment. And the present moment is always where we connect with him. And understanding and experiencing that will change your life!

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Our audio engineer is Diego Huaman.

This podcast is a ministry of The Crossing, a church in Columbia, Missouri, a college town where the flagship campus of the University of Missouri is located.