Maximizing Your Potential

you will operate from worldly standards and values. You are what you eat. Cultivate and Feed Your Body

Your body is a precise machine that requires proper food, exercise, and rest. Healthy food, regular exercise, and scheduled periods of rest are essential for it to operate at its maximum potential. Physical health deteriorates when sweets, fats, or other harmful foods are stuffed into the body, and the body’s strength and endurance are lessened if exercise (work) is missing from your daily routine. Likewise, the absence of rest depletes the body’s resources until exhaustion and even collapse eventually occur. Cultivate and feed your body by living within a healthy routine that includes nutritious food, moderate but systematic exercise, and regular sleep and relaxation. Secondly, the cultivation and feeding of your body requires that you use it with discretion, setting it apart for its intended uses. God did not give you a physical body so you can fill it with empty calories or treat it as a beast of burden. If you have a choice of a salad or french fries for lunch, choose the salad. The fries may taste good, but they do little or nothing to nourish you. In a similar manner, consider the proper use of your body when you are working or exercising. For example, safeguard your back by bending your knees to lift a heavy load. This requirement to use your body with discretion also means that you should treat it with respect and exercise caution not to abuse it. Take care not to allow cigarettes, alcohol, and other harmful substances to enter it. As the apostle Paul warns us: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10). Each person will have to give an account for what he did with his body. Third, you must cultivate your physical body by preserving it and protecting it from pollutants. If you are going to do something for the world, if you are really going to contribute to the effectiveness and the productivity of your nation, you cannot be sick because you cannot be effective if you are sick. As the apostle Paul says: Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? .. .Therefore honor God with your body (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). In his letter to the church at Rome, Paul adds: ..offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship (Romans 12:1).