The physical body is meant to be temporary. In the New Testament, a tent is used as a metaphor for the body (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:1, 4; 2 Peter 1:13-14). We all know tents to be temporary shelter. When we go camping we bring a tent. When we go home we put the tent away and forget about it until the next trip. As our tent (i.e. our body) gets older we begin to feel pains that we’ve never felt before, and see changes in our appearance. We make countless attempts to slow down, or stop, the inevitable. Our bodies were not meant to last long. “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14). We are all dying. Our bodies are corruptible, and mortal (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:53). The question is, “Are You Dying?” Of course you are dying, physically. However, let us consider the question from a spiritual perspective.

While we can alter our diets, and exercise habits, we cannot prevent aging. The fittest man in the world will eventually be another old man. The most beautiful woman in the world is subject to wrinkles and blemishes later in life. All of these changes are evidence of a fading life. “It is appointed for men to die once” (Hebrews 9:27). We cannot do anything to renew our physical bodies. We cannot escape death. However, we do have the ability to change something else. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16, “even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” Our inward man is more important than our outward man. How wonderful it is that God has given us the ability to renew it! How might the inward man be renewed?

The renewing of the inward man is not a result of a secret action or remedy. The apostle Paul says in Colossians 3:10 we are “renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him (Christ).” Christians are called to be conformed to Christ’s image (cf. Romans 8:29). Paul tells us to “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). In order to imitate Christ we must know how He lived. We must know what He taught, and what He stood for. This is accomplished by letting “the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Colossians 3:16). We can’t renew our inward man without the word of God. Jesus said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32). The truth makes us free from the bondage of sin. Sin has an opposite effect on our inward man than the word. Sin is putrefying. Instead of renewing our inward man it breaks it down. Once set free from the deathly clutch of sin we must renew, or heal, our inward man. This calls for diligent study of God’s word. Paul told young Timothy to “give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.” He said to “meditate on these things that your progress may be evident to all. Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you” (1 Timothy 4:13, 15, 16). By renewing your inward man in the knowledge of God’s word you are saving yourself.

Are You Dying? If you are not renewing your inward man, then yes. Pleasing God is not one sided. You cannot please God by merely putting of the old man. “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). We must put on the new man renewed in knowledge! The Hebrew Christians in Hebrews 5:12-14 were not being renewed in knowledge. They were stagnant in their faith, and as a result, were drifting away! If we don’t meditate on the noble, just, pure, lovely, and virtuous things of the word (cf. Philippians 4:8), sin is going to creep back in our lives. The righteous individual’s “delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night” (Psalm 1:2). It should not be a strain to study God’s word. It should be our delight! After all, it is the power of God to salvation (cf. Romans 1:16)!