A New Perspective (by G S Royal)

I have a friend who has a fear of flying, so she thumbs her nose at it by deliberately flying. I have another friend who has a fear of public speaking, and he deals with it by joining Toastmasters.  I spent most of my life hiding my body because I was ashamed of it. As a young teenager, I quickly learned that I had nothing down there to be proud of. It took me decades to learn I had nothing to be ashamed of, either. Like my friends, I chose to spit in the eye of what I feared. I chose to accept my body and stop hiding it. To deliberately let it be seen (without offending someone or violating the law).

Sometimes what you’re most afraid of doing, is the very thing that will set you free.

Indecent?  No.

So many have been wounded—myself included—by a view of the body “that has the smell of brimstone all over it,” to quote my friend Draco.

Pastor David L Hatton tells a story of a blind man who was sitting on the sidewalk with his hat turned up at his feet and a sign that read I’M BLIND. PLEASE HELP. A few people had put something in his hat, but most just passed on by. A man who worked in public relations came by, turned the sign over, and wrote a new message on it. Later, he came back by and the hat was full of money! What he had written gave those who read it a new perspective: IT’S SPRING, AND I CAN’T SEE IT.

The problem I had, and so many of us still have is this:

My body is beautiful, and I can’t see it.

As though some miraculous metamorphosis has transformed our perspective (see Romans 12:2), we need to see the human body the way God sees it: naked and unashamed, the pinnacle of his creative genius.

Thousands of people have defeated their body shame demons. They have come to see themselves through God’s eyes. And they are doing it through the prism of naturism.

Ungodly?  No.

Most detractors are good church-going people who think they are honoring God by condemning those who live as naturists. In some ways, prudery has been elevated to the value of scripture, and that’s a slap in the face of the very Creator whom they try to serve!

What’s ungodly is listening to the enemy of our souls when he tells us to be ashamed of the image of God that we bear. Let the words of a poem I wrote a couple of years ago speak to you:

The Imago Dei
(The Image of God)

A man and woman—naked—
once in a garden stood
Created in God’s image,
He called it ‘very good!’

Fashioned for a purpose,
one infinite in worth:
to replicate God’s image
through miracle of birth.

Then comes the great deceiver
who so wants to be God,
and have the gift He’d given
these creatures made from sod.

He saw the Imago Dei
they clearly represent
and hated with a passion
everything it meant.

What happened next is epic.
A tree, its fruit, a lie:
“You’ll be like God! Here; eat it.
You surely will not die!”

Then once the bite was taken,
dressed only in their skin,
they heard, “…and put some clothes on!
Your nakedness is sin!!”

How prudishly we’re living
in our ‘enlightenment’,
while foolishly retaining
that gnostic excrement

so readily accepted
by hearts that went astray
when moral independence
was birthed that fateful day.

As mankind swallowed fully
a fallen angel’s plan,
Godly wisdom faded
from the heart of man.

We should actually be ashamed of being ashamed! As Mr. Larry has stated: How is it possible for the human body, which was created in the image of God, to be offensive to anybody? Satan would love to see God’s greatest creation be considered offensive.

What’s ungodly is objectifying certain body parts, and thereby separating the body from the soul that owns it.

What’s ungodly is teaching our children that the mere sight of naked humanity is sin. In doing so we have helped our great enemy create a culture that is steeped in pornographic filth.

What’s ungodly is the prudish mindset that gives pornography its power!

Study the Scriptures regarding this, asking God the Holy Spirit to open your eyes to His truth. Many are finding that these bodies are still fearfully and wonderfully made.  Because of Christ’s redemptive work, our bondage to sin has been broken.  We no longer have to believe the lie.  We can replace it with the truth.  We can once again be naked and unashamed.

G S Royal
©2022