Posted on October 7, 2026 by Rev. Jonathan Conner
Godly Living
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Body, Money, Skills, and Mind
Christianity is something we do. Salvation is what Jesus does. This article is our sixth and final part of this series on doing the faith. In the first four installments, we covered worship, Bible reading, devotions, and prayer. In Part 5, we looked at four specific actions in our day-to-day lives. Paul’s words in Philippians 1 informed our study: “[L]et your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ…” (1:27).
As we shared in the last article, Paul’s words carry the idea of citizenship, of living thoughtfully, consistently, and orderly lives in light of that citizenship. Our citizenship, as Paul goes on to share in Philippians, is a heavenly citizenship. As such, our manner of life needs to reflect that. It needs to be evident in how we live.
Last time we considered how our heavenly citizenship informs the way we use our eyes, our ears, our hands, and our mouth. In this article, we consider our body (our posture and clothing), our money, our skills, and our mind.
As we do, I must again make this point: We’re talking about the things we must do as Christians. We’re not discussing esoteric ideas or pleasant sentiments; we’re talking about the very real and practical ways we conduct our lives day in and day out. If we are going to let the manner of our life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, we must do these things. And when we do these things, they will reinforce and strengthen our confession because, as we’ve covered before, words (our confession of faith) inform actions and actions reinforce our words.
God has given us bodies and God has attached purpose to our bodies. Genesis 1 and 2 help us appreciate our bodies and their God-given purpose:
God has given us bodies and God has attached purpose to our bodies. Genesis 1 and 2 help us appreciate our bodies and their God-given purpose:[1]
“Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth’” (Genesis 1:26).
And,
“The LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” (Genesis 2:7).
The first verse speaks of the divine image and the given dominion. The second verse helps us appreciate that this is an embodied image, an enfleshed dominion. God created your body in His image and God blessed you to live out that image in your body through the dominion you exercise over His creation. In ways that are sometimes difficult to express, you were created to incarnate God’s image, dominion, and love. You were made to live and do these in three dimensions.
What does that mean? It means you were given a body to create beauty and order—little Edens everywhere you go. You were given a body not merely to tell truth, but to express truth in word and deed. Your body is involved in telling and doing truth.
Understanding this will motivate us to stand up straight with our heads up as we move confidently into the world to do the work God has set before us to do, as we set out to incarnate His love. To be a bit more direct: Your mission will affect your posture. Posture communicates identity. You bear God’s image. God has given you work to do. You are baptized into Christ. Do it confidently. No slouching. Christians aren’t slouchers.
I’ve shared this before, but rehearsing your identity daily in the mirror is a great way to start your day. Tell yourself what God has done for you. Tell yourself who you are in Christ. Do this daily and it will affect your posture. Yes, backs bend with age, but posture is more than a straight back and age cannot bend our spirits because age cannot lessen our identity in Jesus.
In addition to posture, our identity and mission call for modesty. If the body is for bringing God’s love to people in three dimensions, we need to ensure our bodies are appropriately adorned and not communicating something at odds with our identity and distracting to our mission. Scripture speaks directly on this:
“[T]he parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require.” (1 Corinthians 12:22-24)
“[W]omen should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works.” (1 Timothy 2:9-10)
“[D]o you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)
What we put on (or don’t put on) our bodies matters. The messages our clothing communicates (whether in words or in suggestion) matter. Are the words or images on our clothing honorable? Do they glorify God? Are our private parts being treated as private parts or as public attention getters? Are we respectfully covered or suggestively exposed? Whose glory are we seeking with our bodies?
Many are quick to claim body sovereignty and the freedom to do as they please with their bodies, but as those redeemed by Christ, we do not retain sovereignty over our bodies. Our bodies belong to God. We live to honor Him and to bring attention and glory to Him in and with our bodies.
Jesus talks about money and possessions more than Heaven and Hell combined. He must think it’s pretty important. He offers this in His Sermon on the Mount:
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:19-21)
Jesus isn’t making a suggestion. He’s telling us how reality works. Our hearts follow our treasure. Our hearts run after and pursue our treasure. If money is our treasure, our hearts will pursue money. If success is our treasure, our hearts will pursue success. If popularity or influence or power is our treasure, our hearts will pursue them.
As Jesus points out, though, none of these things is permanent. They can all be taken, all be eaten by the world. As followers of Christ, we need to put our treasure (the first portion of our income) in the work of the kingdom. In His parable about the rich fool, Jesus calls this being “rich toward God” (Luke 12:21). In giving our first portion (what the Bible calls our “firstfruits”) to God, we will lead our hearts to treasure Him and His kingdom.
This is an appropriate place to explain why it’s important to be disciplined in our firstfruit giving. Let’s use an image to illustrate. It’s evening. You’ve been going at a steady clip all day—work, laundry, appointments, emails, meals, dishes, etc. You sit down, put your feet up. What happens? You start to become one with the couch. How much more meaningful work will you accomplish that evening? Probably not much!
Giving works like that. We need to give before our money gets into our accounts and gets comfortable. If that money gets comfortable, it’s very difficult to get it off our couch and working for the kingdom. We need to give the first portion of our income (or at least ensure the first portion is budgeted to be given) immediately.
In addition to giving immediately (or making a disciplined budget to give to ensure that it happens), we need to give proportionately. Scripture extols the tithe (the first 10% of our income). This is not a Biblical law, but there is wisdom in it. This is a large enough percentage to be felt—and that’s a good thing. We have a deep, spiritual need to part regularly with something that is important to us. We have a deep, spiritual need to give so that we have to trust God to provide and so that “the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches” don’t “choke the word” of the kingdom such that it “proves unfruitful” (Matthew 13:22).
Tithing has the further benefit of engaging members in the ministry and mission of Jesus’ church. Those who give their leftovers don’t care what the church does with their gift. Who cares what happens with your leftovers? Those, however, who give the first 10% of their income to their local congregation get engaged in the life of their congregation because people care what happens with their generous gift.
A word of clarification is in order here. Tithing means giving the first 10% of your income. If you are a business owner, this does not mean giving 10% of your business income. Your income and your business income are two different things. For example, if your business did a million dollars’ worth of business in a year, you would not tithe on this. You would tithe on the income you took home, let’s say $80,000.
It’s also important to emphasize that tithing is not reserved for adults. Tithing is for anyone who has income. This would include youth. Our youth should be giving regularly and proportionately. Tithing would be a great practice for our youth to learn while they’re young so that they can carry this beautiful, church-edifying, spiritually beneficial discipline into adulthood.
There’s one more nuance on giving proportionately/tithing that we need to address. Sometimes people argue that volunteering reduces or eliminates their need to give proportionately or to tithe. The sentiment is understandable—and volunteering is a wonderful, Godly endeavor!—but the position falls apart under clarifying questions. How do we measure volunteering? Do we tithe off the hours in our week? That would be over 16 hours a week. Or do we tithe off the arbitrary number of working hours in a week (a tithe off 40 hours would be four hours per week).
Of perhaps more importance is the question of where Scripture teaches this? Scripture extols giving and volunteering, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t equate the two. Given the number of warnings against loving money (and the power money has to captivate and capture our soul’s devotion) and the repeated exhortations to give generously (to dethrone money in our heart and lead our hearts to pursue the kingdom of God), it would seem to me that we have a deep, spiritual need to give sacrificially from the first portion of our income and to volunteer. Both are important. They are not the same.
God has gifted us in different ways with different interests, different abilities and aptitudes. The Apostle Paul wrote, we have “gifts that differ according to the grace given to us…”. And then he added, “let us use them” (Romans 12:6). Part of the Christian life is discerning our particular giftedness and then working to strengthen our skills in that area. In other words, we need to figure out what we gravitate toward and then get good at it. This isn’t about us making a name for ourselves, or us earning as much money as we can for ourselves. This is about us getting good at something that we can use or do to bless other people and bring glory to Jesus.
Are you mechanically inclined? Go get good at it and become the best mechanic or technician you can be. Are you musically inclined? Go get good at it and become the best musician you can be. Are you agriculturally inclined? Go get good at it and become the best farmer, soil scientist, horticulturalist, conservationist, agronomist, etc., you can be. Are you good at communicating? Go get good at it and become the best teacher, reporter, pastor, missionary, business leader you can be. Go get good at something for the sake of your neighbor.
This is an appropriate place to encourage you to severely limit (possibly even eliminate) the mindless distractions from your life. Our churches, our communities, our schools, our civic organizations, have been greatly hindered by a population of people mindlessly distracted by what amounts to twaddle. How much of your life has been lost in a screen, whether the big one on your wall or the small one in your pocket? How many evenings have you lost whole swaths of time in your screen? How many nights have you lost sleep because your screen kept you up longer than you intended?
Can screens be used for meaningful and edifying purposes? Absolutely! Is that what we spend most of our time doing on screens? No. The data bear this out. Most of our free-choice time on screens is dedicated to mindless distraction, scrolling Facebook and Instagram, watching YouTube, posting on X, playing Candy Crush, Clash of Clans, or Call of Duty.
Many people tell themselves these programs provide an escape from the stress of their life. There is truth in this, but it’s not the whole truth. We might not realize it, but these programs do more than provide an escape from reality; they condition us into a different reality, a very shallow, self-absorbed, neighbor-oblivious reality. These programs become, what Cal Newport calls in his book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, “a cognitive crutch” that “weakens your mind’s general ability to resist distraction…” (212). In other words, they condition us to live for escape, to crave escape, escape into an artificial, shallow, two-dimensional world. This cognitive crutch essentially erases our neighbors from our mind. It erases the needs of our church, of our communities, of our schools, from our minds. Who wants to work at honing a skill when endless entertainment and escape is available and calling?
Acknowledging this truth is difficult. Choosing a mature response is more difficult. Some of us may be able to set up safeguards and boundaries to keep these attention-grabbing, mind-altering machines in our lives. Some of us may need to get rid of these machines altogether. You must know yourself, your tendencies, your weaknesses, your enemies of skill development, and you must take action accordingly.
We have civic organizations that need to be supported, Bible studies and life-skill programs that need to exist, relationships that need to be fostered, instruments that need to be mastered, songs that need to be written, teams that need to be formed, family bonds that need to be built and strengthened, marriages that need to be nurtured, and so much more. And Christians should be at the forefront of every one of these. Our faith compels us to engage the world to save the world and serve the world. We need to identify a skill and get good at it for the sake of our neighbor and for the glory of Jesus.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Jesus commanding that God be loved with the whole person, explicitly including the mind (Mt 22:27, Mk 12:30, Lk 10:27). In order to do this, we must intentionally seek out resources to equip our minds. The list below, which I shared in February in a sermon and texted/emailed to you (Zion), is a great place to start. It’s not an exhaustive list, but it is a place for you to start strengthening your mind, something Jesus calls us to do as His followers. Take a moment and review and then pick a place to start. Pick one and begin equipping your mind to better love God and more confidently confess Christ.
Science-themed videos and publications that dismantle Darwinism and materialism and extol creation and intelligent design:
Long Story Short │ Science Uprising │ Genesis Apologetics │ Acts and Facts │ Secrets of the Human Body
Identity, sexuality, marriage, reproductive technology-themed videos and curriculum that expose the world’s lies and extol Scripture’s truth:
The Identity Project │ The Holy Sexuality Project │ Them Before Us’s video curriculum
Praeger U. │ World Watch
Podcasts that teach and use the Christian worldview:
Issues, Etc. │ The World and Everything in It
Financial Peace University │ The Every Dollar App
Our local Celebrate Life Group │ Lutheran Family Service │ The Greater Than Campaign
The Tech Exit │ Digital Liturgies │ The Common Rule
The Collapse of Parenting │ Girls on the Edge │ Boys Adrift │ Why Gender Matters
Zion’s newsletter │ The Lutheran Witness │ The Small Catechism
Camps and retreats available to equip your kids with a robust Christian worldview:
Vocatio (Concordia Seminary, St. Louis) │ Christ Academy (Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne) │ Higher Things │ Camp Okoboji │ Iowa District West and LCMS National Youth Gatherings │ Worldview Academy
Thoughtful authors who equip the Christian mind:
John Lennox │ Stephen Meyer │ Joel Biermann │ J. Warner Wallace │ Leonard Sax │ Randy Alcorn │ Gene Veith │ Nancy Pearcey │ Timothy Keller │ Randy Alcorn
The Chronicles of Narnia │ The Wingfeather Series │ The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross │ Jesus and the Lion’s Den │ The Biggest Story │ The Illustrated Little Pilgrim’s Progress
Thoughtful contemporary Christian musicians to listen to with your kids:
Andrew Peterson │ Flame │ Crowder │ Rend Collective │ TobyMac │ The Arcadian Wild
Thoughtful works of Christian poets who explicitly bring the Christian mind into their poetry:
As Kingfishers Catch Fire: Selected and Annotated Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins │ Waiting on the Word: A Poem a Day for Advent, Christmas and Epiphany by Malcolm Guite │ Word Made Fresh: An Invitation to Poetry for the Church by Abram Van Engen │ Getting Through What You’re Going Through: Notes and Poems for Hoping and Becoming by Tanner Olson
Christianity involves the mind, so we must train and strengthen our minds as followers of Jesus. If you have questions about a resource on the list, ask. If you want help in an area not named, ask.
To return to the point we’ve been making over and again throughout this series: Christianity is something we do. We’ve covered worship, Bible reading, devotions, prayer, and eight specific actions for us to do. It’s now time for you to do the faith. It’s time for you to discover the joy that comes from doing the faith. This is my prayer for you, that you would enthusiastically confess Christ and diligently reinforce that confession in the daily doing of the faith. Let’s get to it.
— Pastor Conner
Missed a previous installment? Read the complete Doing the Faith series:
[1] The next few paragraphs are drawn from an article I wrote entitled “Your Body: Given to Incarnate God’s Love.” You can find it at zionmanning.com under the blog tab.
Rev. Jonathan Conner is a contributor and speaker for Lutheran Family Service in the areas of mental health, godly living, and parenting. He is a regular guest on the podcast Issues, Etc., and the multi-part series Kids Have Questions. Pastor Conner is a graduate of Concordia Seminary St. Louis and currently serves as the pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Manning, Iowa.
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