Honor God With Your Body

Honor God with Your Body

You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

So many women start out in a bad place and feel that they’re stuck, that nothing is ever going to change. Sheri Rose Shepherd did, and as a teenager she made a lot of poor choices, from the friends she hung out with to the junk food she consumed. By the time Sheri was sixteen, she was sixty-five pounds overweight, and her physical condition was getting worse. She was already at risk for health problems that don’t usually occur until adulthood. Sheri’s stepmother encouraged her to turn to God for help, but for a time Sheri ignored that advice and continued in her downward spiral until she finally turned to the Lord.

With God’s help and guidance, she made some positive changes and began exercising and eating the right foods for the right reasons: not to have a perfect, skinny body or to attract attention but to honor God with her body. The improvements both physically and emotionally were so transforming that Sheri eventually began to share what she had learned with other women. She produced a fitness video and has written books that have inspired hundreds of women to make better choices about their health.

The Lord made you spirit, soul, and body. He took special care in creating every part of your physical body and breathed his life into you. He designed you from your head and hair color right down to your toes. Now, just as he does with all the other gifts he’s given to you, God wants you to take care of your body—to value, accept, and be grateful for the way he made you, not to hate your hair, thighs, or shape. Most of all, he wants you to honor him with your body.

—CHERI

Thank you, my Creator, for making me spirit, soul, and body and for breathing life into me. From the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, I want to honor you with my body.

We do not stop exercising because we grow old—we grow old because we stop exercising.

—DR. KENNETH COOPER, MEDICAL DOCTOR, AUTHOR, AND “FATHER OF AEROBICS”