How to Glorify God in Your Body: 5 Practical Ways
Have you ever wondered how to glorify God in your body?
Perhaps you’ve read Romans 12:1 and want to apply it to your life: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship” (NIV).
Today, we’ll talk about how to glorify God in your body with five practical steps. I invite you to join me on a clear winter morning, and we’ll explore the idea of bringing God glory in all we do.
How to Glorify God in Your Body
Birdsong tangled in the spruce boughs the morning of my birthday. It was going to be a good day, the kind of day with space to breathe and bask and reflect on the past year.
I was going to drink green tea, tickle the little one until he belly-laughed, and walk beneath the veil of hemlocks in the valley. We would order pizza and wings for dinner and laugh with light hearts while we ate.
Instead, the school declared a snow day, I got to teach my kids at the kitchen table, fights broke out, no one wanted to walk beneath snow-laden hemlocks, and when the pizza came, all I really wanted to do was lock myself in the basement and enjoy the silence.
Have you ever wondered how to glorify God in your body when your plans are derailed?
How do you lean into what God has for you when you wanted sunshine and got a blizzard instead?
It feels downright unfair when God sends a detour and your happy day is turned into a hard day.
I think about all this as I watch the winter storm blow across the fields outside. Maybe the secret to glorifying God isn’t about happy circumstances. Maybe it’s about a willing heart.
How to Glorify God in Your Body: 5 Ways
Do you want to learn how to glorify God in your body, even when life is frustration? Consider these truths:
1. You will glorify God in your body when you give your life away to others.
Jesus offers the following admonition: “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33 ESV).
Sometimes I get to feeling miserable because my focus is on myself. My eyes are on what’s lacking in my life. Jesus offers a paradox when he tells us that the most abundant life is the life that’s given away.
What’s this look like?
We give our time to invest in others.
We give our energy to help those in need.
This is the great paradox: whoever refreshes others will be refreshed (see Prov. 11:25 NIV).
2. You will glorfy God when you put the needs of others ahead of your own needs.
The Apostle Paul reminds us of the following truth: Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves (Phil. 2:3).
Do you want deeper joy? Do you truly want to learn how to glorify God in your body?
Find someone to serve.
Find someone who needs your love.
Encourage someone.
Make up your mind to stop searching for someone to serve you, and be the gift in someone’s life.
3. You will glorify God when you learn to hold your plans loosely.
I tend to feel upset when my plans don’t work out. I have high hopes for how my days will unfold, and when my plans fall apart, I’m resentful and frustrated.
Do you really want to glorify God?
Learn to live with open hands.
Make plans, but receive what God brings to your days.
A mentor once encouraged me with these words, “You will find the joy you crave when you learn to embrace the reality that is your life.”
What reality is your life? What reality are you pushing back against?
Are you tired of hurrying to check boxes off some unwritten list?
Pause today, friend.
God is not calling you to a life of hurry. If you are hurrying to check off all the boxes, you are likely chasing goals God never asked you to set.
God is not calling you to a life of hurry. If you are hurrying to check off all the boxes, you are likely chasing goals God never asked you to set. #hurry #goals #slowingdown Click To Tweet4. You will glorify God when you live slowly.
Pursue a present way of living.
Look long into the eyes of the people you love.
Pause to breathe. Pause to glance heavenward.
Give thanks often.
5. You will glorify God in your body when you keep watching for his presence.
God has promised to never leave you. He is with you in the routine tasks of your ordinary days.
Do you really want to live for his glory.
Slow your pace to watch for what God is doing all around you, especially when your plans fall apart.
As daylight faded on my disappointing birthday, I gathered the little ones. I gathered them with their frustrations and needs and bad moods, and we snuggled on the couch.
It wasn’t perfect.
Nevertheless, God’s presence was with us. I knew I had taken one small step toward embracing the interruption to my plans, which was, perhaps, the simplest way to honor God with my body. The same invitation awaits you countless times every day. What will you choose?
A Free Online Devotional to Help You Learn How to Glorify God in Your Body
I have a gift for you today. Set Free: Let God Do What You Cannot explores ten realms in which most of us need God to work in our lives and bring balance and peace. We’ll talk about finding freedom from fear, worry, insecurity, bad habits, emotional pain, and more. This short online devotional will bless you as you let God accomplish what you’ve been unable to achieve through willpower. Get your download for free with promo code GRACE right here.
These Two Books are Free on Kindle Unlimited as eBooks and Also Available in Print:
God wants to work in your life to accomplish what you’ve been unable to do through willpower alone. Lean Into Grace: Let God’s Grace Heal Your Heart, Refresh Your Soul, and Set You Free shares practical ways to experience God’s freedom, healing, power, and presence in your life. Find this life-changing book in eBook form for free on the Kindle Unlimited Plan or for 12.99 in print right here. (You can sign up for a free three-month Kindle Unlimited trial if you are not a member.) This book will transform your life and revitalize your relationship with the Lord!
Calling all moms and daughters!
Additionally, my 12-year-old daughter, Bekah, and I wrote a mother-daughter devotional book to help mothers and daughters grow closer together while connecting with God. Girl to Girl: 60 Mother-Daughter Devotions for a Closer Relationship and Deeper Faith includes 60 devotions with Scripture, commentaries from both of us, conversation starters, and even a shared journaling section. Multitudes of mothers, daughters, mentors, and younger women are being transformed by this book! You can buy your paperback or get your free Kindle Unlimited eBook on Amazon right here.
