Worship As A Full-Bodied Allegiance

In one of the groups I lead, we were talking about worship as a full-bodied allegiance to God and what that meant.  We went through Romans 12:1-2 as it exhorts us to worship God by giving our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.  We touched on the old Anglican wedding vows, where we vow to our spouse, “With my body, I thee worship”.  We went through some of the laws in the Old Testament and noted how they not only touch on every area of life, but how the entire law codes were always sandwiched between laws of worship (see Exodus 20:22-26 and 23:14-19 as well as Deuteronomy chapters 12 and 26), especially what we do with our bodies.  

For some strange reason, we tend to see ourselves as somehow detached from our bodies, as though the real “me” is not somehow enmeshed with my physical being.  That is how we justify all kinds of things done in the body, while we think our soul is untouched by sin.  

Given our focus on the Song of Songs these past four weeks and the issue of bodily sexual intimacy in line with God’s will and design, I suggest that we re-consider what it means to worship God with our very bodies—what the act of a physical touch can mean (whether sexual or platonic) and what the significance of Jesus being God in bodily form among humanity means to our obedience to God.  

My reminder to us all is that worship is everything we do with these bodies God has crafted and given to us.