Romans 8:6-10 -- On Dead Bodies

"For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness."
Romans 8:6-10


Wait. Dead bodies with living spirits in them? Is this a zombie novel? :) ... Sometimes the symbolic meanings can be confusing, but I feel like the core message here is clear: we need to let the Spirit rule in our lives, rather than the body.

Coming to earth and gaining a body set us all up with some inherent motivational conflict between what the two parts of ourselves want. The spirit wants unity with God and others, life, peace, goodness. The body has appetites that the spirit doesn't have, for food, intimacy, general tactile and other sensory feedback like music, television, the scent of rain, or our need for sleep.

Part of the challenge of this life is to deal with these new sensations and to unify the two parts of ourselves. God has a body and he knows the value of it--he granted bodies to us purposely, and will restore them to us in the resurrection. They are ours, permanent parts of ourselves now.

It is definiely possible to satisfy all of our body's needs without straying from our spiritual needs, but we often get our priorities mixed up and let our body's desires take precedence, starving our spirits and making them subserviant to the flesh, rather than the other way around... well, not entirely the other way around, because we don't want our bodies to actually literally die, but symbolically, as above, we want them dead as in "not in charge even a little bit" to draw us into sin, but to be completely under control of our spirits, and both sides tuned into God's Spirit, who teaches us the way to unify the parts of ourselves for maximum joy, so that we can have all the positive benefits of a body without falling into the traps of sin, leaving our spiritual selves symbolically dead and unfulfilled.

Today, let's prioritize our spiritual needs, learning ways to care for our bodies and take full advantage of their capabilities without offending God and our own Spirits.