I Subject My Body and Keep It in Bondage

I Subject My Body and Keep It in Bondage

Paul did not beat the air; he did not deal in dreams or in theoretical fantasies. Not at all! He kept to something tangible and practical by subjecting his body.

When someone is subjected, there has to be someone who resists, someone who is not willing to be directed. In other words, there is something in our body that resists God’s will, that resists going God’s way. There are all kinds of lusts that have to be subjected and kept in bondage by force.

The words are clear and unmistakable. The meaning of the verb “to subject” cannot be mistaken; neither can the word “bondage.” What does the word “bondage” mean? It means that there is something that I have to put up with, that there is someone or something that rules over me. If I am in bondage to men, it means that people rule over me, and if I am in bondage to sin, it means that sin rules over me. Both of these kinds of bondage are evil.

On the other hand, if we are bond-servants of Christ, it is to our own benefit, for He is a blessed Lord who does everything for our best. Likewise, the bondage that we are dealing with here is a good and blessed bondage; namely, the Spirit’s rule over our body or over the lusts in the body. Our quickened spirit, our conscious “I,” rules over the body through the power of the Spirit, leading it as a living sacrifice where it does not want to go, according to God’s will.

These lusts that resist God’s will are, for example: the lust for idleness, luxurious living, conceit, vanity and an inordinate fondness for finery, honor of man, money, pleasing men, being great and having authority, making yourself noticed, being regarded as smart, drawing back from sufferings, and the lust to gain all sorts of advantages.

If we do not subject all this and much more, it will grow in our life so that we transgress the holy commandment to love God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves, and we are thus found to be unworthy of our high calling.

It can be that our body does not want to go two miles according to God’s will; nevertheless it must obediently go the two miles, for the Spirit compels it to do it without asking whether it wants to or not.

Blessed is everyone who subjects his body and keeps it in bondage. Blessed is everyone who by God’s grace manages to steer his body according to God’s will.