Spirit and Body

We are always in constant battle for the rights to ourselves.  We fight for the rights of our bodies and we fight for the rights of our spirits.  From a Materialists point of view, the body and it's machinations are all that matter.  Anything resembling a spirit or soul is merely an evolutionary illusion.  The Gnostics, then and now shun the material world, seeing the physical being as mere extra weight to be shed to get to the real self.  These are two worldviews on opposite ends of the spectrum and I have oversimplified them both.  But I do so to express how glorious and comprehensive Christianity is.  More specific, it is Christ himself that makes the world, that makes us whole.  Christ, existing in the heavenly realm, became a man to exist in the earthly realm...on Earth as it is in heaven.  Materialism invites you to escape to your physical comforts.  Gnosticism invites you to discard the concerns of your body, because you are in fact a spirit.  Christ promises something more and something real, that your Spirit exists now and for all time and it has a body and that body, like the whole Earth will be made new.  You only need to believe and upon believing invite the living and breathing Christ to rescue you from an eternity of decay.

Philippians 3
 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. ¹⁹ Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

We can shed neither the Body or the Spirit we can only (attempt) to surrender.  And we mustn't hold back one or the other, but both belong to God and in his hands we can be as he intended: Perfect.  And even when we stray far from that perfection, we can still claim the perfection of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5
For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. ² Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, ³ because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. ⁴ For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵ Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.