At different times in my life, I have bought a new house, just as many of you have. Along with the excitement and drudgery of moving into a new place, we usually picked up a 30-year mortgage loan. What most people don’t think about is what the mortgage loan really means is you own just a little bit of the house and the mortgage company owns the balance. As the years pass, more of the house belongs to you until you finally pay off the loan. At that point, the house actually and finally belongs to you. Part of the deal with the mortgage company while you have the loan is that you take care of the house, keep it in good repair, and maintain it. If you can think of “30 years” as being temporary, then so is that loan. The mortgage company shows its faith in you by loaning you the money in the belief you will pay it back, since it is just temporary.
One of my favorite authors is the Western writer, Louis L’Amour. One of the recurring themes in his books it that the earth is ours to use as we need to do, but it is just on temporary loan to us. The period of the loan is, of course, the length of our lives. The earth and all its wonders are on loan to us by God and He has faith in us to take care of it properly. God expects us to nurture and tend the earth and when we leave it, to return it to Him in better shape than when He gave it to us.
When God created us as individuals, He infused our immortal soul into our mortal body. Once created, that soul is ours for all eternity. The body is not so lucky. God has merely loaned it to us so we can love and serve Him here on earth for the length of our lives. Some of us have a very long term loan and some not so long at all. It is what we do with the loan while we have it that is most important. Since we also have the gift of free will, we can choose to take care of that loan, keep it up and nourish it, and use it as God intended us to do. We can also exercise that free will and abuse this body or use it for evil purposes. Like any regular loan, God expects us to pay interest. In this case, the interest is to use our earthly existence to serve God in which ever purpose suits His needs and desires for us.
All loans are temporary, whether they are six years for a car, 30 years for a house, or a lifetime for this body. Just as in paying off a financial loan transfers the ownership from the bank to you, so too do you get to keep what you were given when you first received your physical loan. When your loan is paid in full, when you have drawn your last breath and served God for the last time here on earth, you then get the full ownership of the promise God gave to you at your conception: you get to have the full and complete presence of God for all eternity. Your body may have been just a temporary loan, but your soul is yours forever, dwelling always in the divine presence of God.
So, the big question is: what are you doing with your temporary loan? Are you taking care of it, nourishing it with the right kinds of food, exercising regularly/occasionally/sometimes, helping it to heal when it is sick or injured, and generally treating it as a special loan from God? Or, are you abusing it with drugs or drinking out of control? Are you over- or under-eating, or eating the wrong things? There are many things that people do to their bodies by treating them in a manner that God never intended.
When it is time to return your temporary loan to God, is it going to show just normal wear and tear, or is it going to be full of scratches, dents and damage? You are the one who gets to decide.
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