Do you not know that you body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?  (1 Corinthians 6:19)

Please take a moment to think about this verse. God has given us this wonderful temple in which He resides in us. As Christians we are charged with caring for our temple so that God may use our physical presence to do His will and good works. We engage in prayer and the reading of God's word for spiritual nurturing, and in nutrition from food and exercise for physical nurturing, or do we?

We are living in an age where time is a precious and vanishing commodity, with long work hours and busy schedules, and fast foods for a lot of us seem to be the fuel of choice. Throw into the mix the lack of moderate physical activity and we have a deteriorating temple. Probably not what God had in mind for us. We should be thankful that our wonderful God created us in such a perfect way that our bodies don't shut down when we cram poor food choices into our temple. Our lives have become so busy now that we need artificial energy boosters to keep us going and although we seemingly move right along, our temple starts to show wear and tear. Our body gives us warning signs of stress such as headaches and body aches and frequent colds as a sign of a weak immune system. All too often this is treated as something we should expect to have from time to time and we pop a pill and try to keep going. If you saw a warning light on the panel of your auto, you wouldn't just disconnect it but would probably find out what the problem was. Research has proven that moderate physical activity along with proper nutrition can help decrease and in some cases eliminate some of the major causes of death, among those are heart disease, cancer, stroke and obesity.

Research also shows that by increasing your caloric out put by just 100 calories and decreasing what you eat by 100 calories per day there will be a fat loss of two or more pounds per month and over 20 pounds per year.

So fellow Christians, I ask: Should we be more obligated to making our health a priority? Should we be the example for the rest of the world? It becomes difficult to serve God if you're feeling sick and run down. It's hard to pray for others if you're too busy praying for yourself. I believe that if we did what was good for bodies 75% of the time, that Almighty God created us in such a way that we could live long, healthy lives free of most ailments.

God gave us guide lines for good health in Genesis 1:29 and told us of certain foods to avoid in Leviticus Chapter 11. God gave us the power of choice. We honor him when we honor his temple.

May God bless you with vibrant health.