Glorify God in Your Body – The Presidential Prayer Team

For you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. – 1 Corinthians 6:20

Can tamales influence election results? If you’ve never had one, a tamale is corn dough known as masa, wrapped around meat or cheese with chilis or corn niblets, then wrapped up in corn husks and steamed to cook them. In April 1976, President Gerald R. Ford was running for reelection against candidate Jimmy Carter. At a stop in San Antonio, Texas, Ford was offered a plate of tamales. Not familiar with them, he smilingly took one and bit into it, corn husk and all. For the uninitiated, the wrapper needs to be removed in order to get to the deliciousness inside. Cameras clicked as the embarrassed president put down the tamale. The incident was revisited on television news shows. The result was that Ford not only lost Texas, he lost the election.

Today’s verse is a reminder that your body, both what you put into it and what you do with it, matters to God. The phrase “my body, my choice” is used across America today with regard to abortion. However, many Christians may have a similar unspoken attitude about other matters relating to the body. It shows up in the consumption of sugars and other unhealthy foods, in the use of alcohol, medications, or illicit drugs, in smoking, or in taking sexual liberties. The instruction of today’s verse is for you to glorify God in your body. This means to intentionally turn away from the things that are negative. Paul cautions in Philippians 3:19 about letting your belly be your god, about taking pride in shameful acts, or in wrongly focusing your mind.

The passage today reiterates that Christ has purchased you at the cost of His own blood. Your liberty in Jesus makes you part of His Body and frees you to reflect Him in your choices. You do not belong to yourself, and your body is not for you to use as you please. God’s purposes for you are enhanced by the way you treat the “sanctuary of the Holy Spirit,” your body. He provides grace to help you make choices that glorify Him and direct you to do what is right. As you pray today, intercede for those who work in the Food and Drug Administration as they oversee those aspects of health for Americans.

Today’s Verse: 1 Corinthians 6:20

for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Recommended for further reading: 1 Corinthians 6:12-20

¹²“All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything. ¹³“Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”—and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. ¹⁴And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. ¹⁵Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” ¹⁷But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. ¹⁸Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. ¹⁹Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, ²⁰for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.