Your Body . . . A Weapon?

Daily Bread

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Have you ever stopped to consider that your body is a weapon? How about, that it is a tool? Note this passage from Paul’s letter to the believers in Rome,

“Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.” (Romans 6:12-13 – NASB)

Ah yes, our high calling as disciples of Christ! Note first that the “Therefore” of our text urges us to consider what has already been said. So, I would encourage you to go back and read the context that these verses are in. You will find that we who are in Christ have been “buried with Him through baptism into death . . . raised from the dead” that “we too might walk in newness of life” (6:4). Thus we “know this, that our old self was crucified with Him” and that “we should no longer be slaves to sin” (6:6).

In “knowing this,” we are “not to let sin reign in” our bodies. We are not to “obey” the body’s “lusts,” its desires and whims and practices that are rooted in “unrighteousness.” We are not to “go on presenting the members of” our bodies “to sin,” that they become “instruments of unrighteousness.” And herein we find the answer to the question I have posed in our devotional heading: “Your body . . . A weapon?” You see, the Greek word used for “instruments” in our text can very easily be translated “weapon.” Strong writes of this word, “an implement or utensil or tool (literally or figuratively, especially, offensive for war).”

Note, “offensive for war.” Your “body” is an offensive “weapon for war.” So, “do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as WEAPONS of unrighteousness.” Rather, in the ongoing war of kingdoms, that of God and of Satan, “present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as WEAPONS of righteousness to God.” We are not to give into the flesh and its desires and thus end up being “weapons” for evil, but rather, walking according to the Spirit (Galatians 5:16-25), we are to “present” our bodies as “weapons” for His use for what is good and right.

The war is raged here on earth, the war between God and Satan. We who belong to Christ have bodies that God wants to use to be “weapons of righteousness.” He wants us to “present our members,” the “members” of our bodies, as “weapons” that manifest “righteousness” in the midst of Satan’s world, a world dominated by “unrighteousness.”

Your body . . . a weapon? You bet it is! Thus, “knowing this,” God says to us,

“I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world (age), but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Romans 12:1-2 – NASB)

Have a good day brethren . . . and as you war do so with the intent of presenting your members as weapons of righteousness.

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