Appreciating God's Design for the Human Body (Part 2 of 2)

Hi this is Jim Daly with Focus on the Family.

I will let you know about an online experience called sea life, 20, 21 in the six episode video series were sharing stories and encouragement that will inspire and empower you to live out your pro-life views.

You also discover valuable resources to help you step up and get involved in the cause. This is a digital experience, you and your family won't want to miss all the details are Focus on the Family.com/sea life there a lot of people around us who don't feel beautiful should help them feel like losers who are deformed or just depressed, discouraged, and we can be the mirror that reflects back to them.

There is something of beauty and worth. You a profound reminder from Philip Yancey. He was a guest last time on Focus on the Family is back again today. So glad you joined us your hostess focus president and author Jim Daly and on John John. We had a fascinating conversation last time with Philip Yancey exploring how we were created in the image of God. We often use that language. Do we truly know what that means. We also discussed how blood is not only essential to our physical bodies, but to our spiritual lives as well. What's the metaphor that God is using their I love that I'm like a kid in the candy store because I always loved biology in school. I always thought maybe I could be a doctor someday calculate the reality was business school awaited me. I had to be a little more practical in my orphan status. So if you missed conversation last time. Do downloaded Collis get in touch with us. We can provide a CD. If that's how you listen to things or get the smart phone app that we have access to the entire library her Focus on the Family Yen courseware and YouTube as well and we mentioned last time that Philip Yancey cowrote a combination of two great classics and it's been updated.

This book is called fearfully and wonderfully. The subtitle is the marvel of bearing God's image and of course will highly recommend you get a copy of that we do have that here at the ministry I just checked the episode notes for the details thought welcome back Focus on the Family thank you Jim. Good to have you as always. And let's get back to the content. It's kind of that paralleled the body. The spiritual nature.

What Dr. Brown taught you about the body.

It's really good.

And this is an excellent resource.

Let's start with the concepts of diversity and unity within the body represented in ourselves, give us some examples of what this diversity and unity looks like it sounds like terms for culture.

Body well that's how bodies work, though if you'd lined up the different cells in the body of a neuron and blood cell in the skins and it would look like. Boy I can't believe they're all from the same body but the body depends on that kind of diversity, and each one has a role to play, but it only works if there working for the good of the body and it's easy for us to value infecting appalled when he's talking about the body in first Corinthians 12 it's you. I think he is a twinkle in his eye because he said there some parts of the body that we tend to give much attention to like eyes. For example, you know we want to make sure our eyes look well and and if they're in danger will immediately go to the eye doctor, but he says that you can get along fine without eyes. Think of Helen Keller. You know she can hear she couldn't see but yet very fulfilling life. But there are some parts of the body, and he says there on presentable and weak we treat them with special modesty. This is Paul writing and I go to a doctor and I ask you what you think Paul is talking and he said well there are some cells that you can't live without kidneys and: if you kidneys shut down going to die within a few days if you're: shuts down you're gonna die within a few days you can get along without an army can get along without eyes or ears if you can't get along without those cells that we canna don't even want to think about and iPhone application of that during COBIT because we tend to have our own hierarchy of who really counts at the top would be people like jet pilots and hedge fund managers and NBA basketball players and all these would be the people of the real top.

We will reward them. NBA player may make $20 million in a season and then when COBIT hits it exposes our culture because suddenly you find out.

Actually, janitors are just as important in keeping you alive as the jet pilot. They're the ones were scrubbing at the airport to get rid of these germs and actually we may not be doing ourselves a favor by paying an NBA basketball player 200 times as much as a teacher.

Suddenly, these parents are caught at home trying to teach their kids online and they realized these features work hard without a reward, the more it kind of expose our society because we the body only works if we value each individual unit and as Paul said those we don't like to even think about the kidney; they are more valuable in keeping the body alive in the things that we give a lot of attention to like her face, that's so true, and culturally that fits what we appreciate has changed because the pandemic that searcher in first Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul is your relating uses the analogy of the human body to explain how the body of Christ should and should not operate. So when you compare those two bodies. What are some insights we can gain from first Corinthians.

One of the obvious ones is diversity. As you've mentioned, because Paul goes on to say we don't all have the same gifts and others who are able to see in front of the congregation on Sunday morning and keep you engaged in teach you be a prophetic voice, but there are others who wouldn't do so well standing in front of a pulpit, but maybe can teach fifth graders. I admire those people that are junior high teachers and goodness and then there are some people who are very good at keeping the chairs lined up in order after the congregation messes them all up firstborn and we all have yet we all have different abilities and spiritual gifts, and he goes on to describe what those gifts are and they only work if there working for the entire body. If you if you want to say look at me, look at me. I can do something that somebody else can do, then it's it destroys the unity that the body needs and Jesus was the greatest example because the night before he was arrested. He took his disciples in the Last Supper and said here's what I want to be a servant.

So find the people that maybe are the lowest on the social ladder and wash their feet. That's what I wanted to do and if you do that, then the entire body will thrive go around saying call attention to yourselves as they were doing. James and John kept saying hey could I be super apostles to the vice president of this group and their mother, who had also harassed Jesus in the woods that you're missing the whole point right it's about servant hood. It's not about Eagle, yet with it, which is so amazing you know well one statement that you made in the book that really caught my attention. I think it's the Golden Nugget and whenever were looking at these kinds of resources that you labor over to write that were only five or six minutes away from death and trying. I mean it. I've never heard it said like that and it's related to our breathing apparatus that you cut off oxygen you five or six minutes for your brain to live that's a thought-provoking way looking at it that were always on the edge of not being here now. You're absolutely right that any can't go through life being afraid of that but is phenomenal. He is focusing is and I had an experience back in 2007 here in Colorado. I was going on an icy road early one Sunday morning and a patch of ice and Mike Ford Explorer fell off a cliff didn't turn over and over five times.

I remember that yeah and I ended up with a broken neck and little hospital did a CAT scan and they said we don't have enough resolution to know whether the carotid artery has been pierced has been penetrated, but we've got by a little piece of bone, but we've got a jet standing by to fly you to Denver for emergency surgery. If indeed it's been pierced but frankly just between you and me. If the carotid artery has been ruptured yet I make it to Denver. You've only got a few minutes. So here's a phone call the people you love and tell him goodbye, just in case, that's one of those wake-up calls and I'm so grateful and fortunate that I can look back on that story because if it had been pierced. I would've been God in five or six minutes, you know, and it was a good reminder. You just can't count on life going on. You should live your life in awareness that today may be the last. When you kiss your wife goodbye when you kiss your kids goodbye. That may be the last time that there's no guarantee that's right, and especially relating that to how your system breathes how your body breathes your lungs just that active taking in air yeah and you know in the Bible the word for breath pneuma is the word for spirit there. The same work so that's a beautiful analogy that just like the physical body needs new oxygen new breath and getting rid of old stuff every couple seconds frankly and certainly every few minutes because if you don't get in new resources within five minutes you will die just hold your breath underwater and you only have a few minutes, maybe three minutes to live and our dependence on God is similar.

You can't just kind of pull them out on Sunday morning and say okay today's the day to think about God now catches up to you. It's a constant being aware of the presence of God and calling out independently say God I can't do this alone. I don't want to treat that person like I should. I need your help. I want to flashback in anger and hurt somebody get some revenge and I can't do that alone.

I need your help. I need your help.

Just like we breathes we need to oxygen in and we need to get rid of the bad stuff out the same things too spiritually when you relate that to being spiritually out of breath. How do you translate that and how do we regain a more oxygen filled spiritual life and oxygen being the Holy Spirit. I would say yeah it's a discipline. Years ago Richard Foster wrote this book about the celebration of discipline and you don't think of discipline is something to celebrate, but the human body teaches us that things work best when the regular and dependable so that I don't have to sit here and think okay Philip, you gotta take a breath. Now exhale now this is built-in and it's harder. Frankly, under conscious control is harder to develop something parallel spiritually because we're lazy and discipline. Who wants discipline, but if you do that if you have a regular pattern of meeting with God.

If you have people around you who will call you accountable. Then it does become much more natural and you have to think about it in the same way is just part of the routine and that's health and the spiritual body in the same way our body X like that fiscally were talking today on Focus on the Family with Philip Yancey about many great concepts as captured in the book fearfully and wonderfully. The marvel of bearing God's image, written by Philip and the late Dr. Paul Brand stop by our website for your copy or give us a call of the link is in the episode notes or call 800 a family. Philip we did a broadcast recently with the neurosurgeon Dr. Lee Warren I know you nobly and he mentioned you and he mentioned how much he meant toward him and encouraged him in writing his story and it was a phenomenal program talking about brain science and what he saw in Iraq as a surgeon, a trauma surgeon, you know the things that had gone through and crisis of faith dealing with people with cancer, brain tumors that he knew would not pull through. And is it futile to pray and all those things.

Let's turn to the body's CEO, as you call it in your book to the brain. What a fascinating organ describe brain for us. What strikes me most about the brain is that we never get to see it and it's the most isolated part of the body. Actually it's in this thick bony skull. I'm sure Dr. Warren could tell you what it's like to try to drill through that that unites, as part of the body, actually, and the brain has never seen anything's never smelled anything it's never heard anything.

It relies on these nerves that go out through the nose or through the years and through the eyes and it relies on the rest of the body to inform it of what's going on. The brain is does anyone feel pain rightly Warren would tell you, once you open the skull would you do need anesthetic for that.

Obviously, to cut through, but you could touch a match to the brain never or cut it. It doesn't feel doesn't feel well, there's no reason for her to feel because it's so well protected by that skull. You know the body is very economical and only protects what needs protecting and to me that's a beautiful picture the way God works in the world God's spirit and we can't see God and he set up this earth. I think to give himself pleasure. I think that's why God created the world he created us to give himself pleasure and and yet he turns over a good CEO doesn't try to do it all by himself. He knows that it's it's the entire group of employees and you know that as the CEO himself, you've got your role, but somebody make sure that the air conditioner is working is working and the lights are working and somebody cleans up afterwards and somebody you know does the various tasks around here the engineers who put the radio program together. CEO often has one of the most relaxed jobs everybody else's lawn scurrying around and God works like that and in fact you know I referred to flipping Stewart talks about Jesus. He gave up the prerogatives of the Godhead and came to be a human being, not just a human being, but a servant the servant who turns over the mission to the rest of us. When Jesus left earth about finance myself wouldn't have been better if Jesus had stayed around yet because we have an ethical issue or something. So how do you really, how should we really deal with this issue going on right here. We could just call of Jesus and say hey Jesus, what should we vote for what we do, but he didn't, and when he left he said is sexy for your good that I'm going away. He said to his disciples these guys who hadn't really demonstrated much ability to that point. But is it is for your good, because now you're the ones here.

The rest of the body and I will live through you all still be the head CEO Paul uses that phrase. He's the head of the body and the more we tune into that had give the feedback in the way my senses do that skull prayer give the feedback and get wisdom and get guidance from that body from that head. The more we do that the entire body will function as God meant it to.

Along those lines, Philip. We all know somebody that is broken physically may be born with some obvious handicaps. Yeah, or maybe with something that isn't wired we would call normally mentally. How does that play out in what you're talking about. Let me just tell you the story of a woman I met at a leprosy hospital in Nepal right next to India. We were being given a tour by a doctor and I looked out this is, there was a courtyard of grass and I saw this woman and I can't tell you she was one of the least attractive human beings I've ever seen in my life. She didn't have any fingers left her hands were just nubs should her feet were bandaged up and she had no toes left, her eyes were crusted over she been blind for years. Her nose had shrunk away so that when you look at the look, right into her skull and the week got the tour of the hospital and on the way back. This woman had crawled all the way across the courtyard. She could walk some plantar elbows and drag her body behind. She heard our voices and so I assumed that she must be a beggar. What else can you do in a situation like that in Nepal and I reached in my pocket to feel if I had some coins to giver and my wife who's a social worker in a hospice chaplain and much more different and holy reaction than I did.

She went over to this woman and put her arms around her and the woman started singing in what she sang was we didn't know the poly. Of course, but we didn't need to lead. We heard the tune. Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so and the doctor giving us a tour, said oh I wanted to meet Don Maya.

She's no backer on my is the closest thing to a scene that we know she's there every time the chapel doors open and factually. Is there anything you need prayer for because her prayers tend to get answered, and I looked at her and I thought, here's this woman that by this standards of the world and most of us go by most of the time is a loser. She has no beauty about her. She has no wealth has no income.

She has no CV.

You know, just to drag yourself across testing Dragon yet in that deformed defective body. The spirit of God shines brightly and in my own experience, people who most impressed me. In fact, I came up with this phrase that I use that pain redeemed impresses me more than pain removed, and I think of something like Johnny Erickson, who I know is going on this broadcast many times and I looked at. She tried so hard to get healed. Everybody who had a gift of healing is preferred Johnny at some point in life which he wasn't healed, but she took that curse what it seemed like at the time of her disability and turned it into a blessing to the church became up prophetess reminded us all of what we needed to do to reach out to the disabled people and I I think again and again.

I found people that on one hand, you think about how sad that this disability on the other hand, they shine with the spirit of God more than the rich and successful that's really powerful Philip and what a great reminder for all of us to think about those that are less fortunate in this life unite can imagine their anticipation of heaven in eternity and leaving the things that have been such a struggle here and being fully functional in the life to come. In many ways as a reward for their faithfulness here. I would think God sees them, but it takes a lot to praise God when your circumstances are down and that's really who you find out what you're about right.

When chips are down, what are you let's interfere with your reflections on Dr. Brand because obviously he was co-authored he passed away in 2003. He worked with them closely. Over 10 years in the original books and now the new book fearfully and wonderfully with Dr. Brand you said that no one has affected you in quite the same way and given the fact that you're an incredible author processing so much great content for all of us millions of your books have sold to say that this man had the greatest influence in your life it's the right question how yes well I guide, and a father growing up.

My father died of polio when I was one euro so I have no memory of him whatsoever and course back in those days, 1950 people were as afraid of cold polio as they are today. Ebola virus. Some of those things and growing up fatherless when I was just starting out my writing career. There were a lot of things I wasn't sure of in my own faith like mention I came from a dysfunctional church and some family issues as well and I really needed somebody to be a mentor to be a father to me. I kinda like this you know we also don't get to choose their fathers and then they have to go through this teenage rebellion years. I was Artie passed that night. Somehow God put the two of us together Dr. Brand 40 years older than I was, or so, but lies in any question I had, I could take dams.

We did some bouncing around in the in the jeeps of India or in the surgery room or in the subway. The tube in London places all over the world where I interviewed him and he is always already thought about those questions and he had some answers for me and what I hi guess what impressed me most. I've interviewed a lot of people as a journalist over my years in Dr. Brand is most impressive in terms of his accomplishments is wisdom is knowledge. His expertise very thoughtful speaks number of languages I'd ask a question is it will be Greek and Hebrew, you know. And yet he spent his most of his career among the lowest people in the social ladder in the world.

I guarantee you there is nobody lower on the social ladder than somebody from the untouchable caste doll. It in India who has leprosy that's as low as it gets the ghost of the low.

It is there kicked out of their own families out of their own villages and here is his brilliant surgeon who gave his life and you think all letter martyred, no, no, no, he was one of the most grateful and joyful people I knew in it because he was serving God and he was seeing these people being transformed. People like Don Maya and he felt privileged to be to have the job of working with a minute. There's one statement in the Bible. Jim, you probably know that is repeated by Jesus more often than any other six times in the Gospels, so it's very important and I'm paraphrasing here. When Jesus said, in effect, was you don't gain your life by acquiring more and more Nazi American way acquire degrees acquire success acquire money you find your life by giving it away in service to others and that was Jesus style.

That's what he did he came and gave his life away and to see this brilliant man live out the truth of that because he found his life by giving it away and eat. I never felt sorry for them for a minute he was fulfilled in every way because Jesus is right. That's how you really find meaning in life, not by feeding yourself, but by giving away.felt this is been so good. And again, you're such a profound thinker and not just buttering you up here but God's really given you a gift to look at something as simple as a human body with your co-author Dr. Brand and to express that in a way that kind of ignites the imagination again, which is a wonderful achievement for an author and you do it so beautifully with all the books that you write. Thank you for being with us. It's a privilege to be with you.

Well is a thrill for me. I remember speaking at Dr. Brent's funeral and I said we had an interesting exchange. I I gave words to his faith.

I contribute the words, but in the process. He gave faith to my words. He really put my faith in a solid foundation because I it only takes one. One person who actually is a follower of Jesus in the way Jesus showed us to convince you this things real. It's true boy that says a lot about your friendship will do. Look for a copy of this book fearfully and wonderfully.

The marvel of bearing God's image was written by the late Dr. Paul Brand and Philip Yancey will send you a copy of that book when you make a monthly pledge of any amount to the ministry of Focus on the Family. If you haven't done so, please consider becoming a sustaining member of her support team, allowing us to produce broadcasts like this one, and provide resources like Phillips book your monthly donation allows us to continue to introduce more families to a life-giving eternal relationship with Jesus Christ, so we invite you to join the support team. In that way monthly pledge or one-time gift either would be appreciated and can donate when you call 880 family that's 800-232-6459 or online will of the link in the episode notes and John before we close that we need to remind everyone about the upcoming pro-life event were hosting in Dallas on August 28. It's our celebrate life live experience where will feature great speakers and musicians who will inspire you to become an advocate for life in today's culture. Our goal is to change hearts and minds about abortion and equip you to have life-changing conversations with your friends, colleagues and family members.

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We'd love to have you participate and we would and details are in the episode notes or call 800 the letter a in the word for coming up next time on this broadcast singer-songwriter Tiffany Lee, otherwise known as Palm offers encouragement, moms of the she cared more about holiness and my happiness more faithfulness and my friendship and she that my caring about holiness and faithfulness that one day there may be some happiness here and there may be a friendship on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team. Thanks for joining us today for Focus on the Family I'm John Fuller inviting you back. As we once more help you and your family right in Christ