Today a friend of mine called me up and Said "we need to start working." After a slew of jokes I had with him about how I was working, just not getting paid, I gave in to the fact that he was referring to exercise. I have been saying this very thing to myself lately, but have not taken the initiative to really "start working." I really needed to though, as an overweight middle-aged man with a family history of heart problems I know the importance of exercise all too well, but so often times I just don't want to do it. After we finished working out today I reflected upon what we just did. During that reflection it came to me that many people do the same thing in their spiritual lives.
People are prone to sin, you could say it is a spiritual condition that exists in our family history. We also have this knack for having a lack of faith. Christ often calls the disciples "ye of little faith." We do not differ too much from them in that regard. If we were to look at the spiritual health of many of the people in our churches I would bet that we would find people as unhealthy spiritually as I am physically. It is time to "start working."
So we ask ourselves this question why is it that many people who call themselves Christians don't exercise their spiritual faith as often as they should? I think part of the problem is that people think that they are exercising enough. My wife, bless her soul, has been trying to get me to go for a short walk with her for weeks now seeing that the weather is so beautiful here. A walk may be better than what I was doing, sitting at a computer writing sermons, working on this blog, and witnessing to people via the internet, but a short walk just would not be enough exercise for me. Many people feel simply showing up in church on Sunday morning is enough spiritual exercise for them, but it is just a short walk. People need more than just a short walk. We need to get our spiritual blood flowing. Other people read from a daily devotional filled with fluff and feel they are really exercising hardcore. Yet this is like watching an 80's exercise video and doing only the parts that are easy and skipping most of the video. Sure they are getting a little bit out of it, but is that enough?
We need to think of our spiritual health and really work those faith muscles. We need to find ourselves working through the hard parts, digging in to the Scriptures on more than just Sunday morning. It is hard to do that though. We may feel that we don't have the time. If it is important to you, and your spiritual health should be important to you, we should make time. Time to pray and study God's word, not just a fluffy devotional. We may feel that it is too hard and we can't really get anything out of a personal study. Currently I am doing the p90x program for my physical training. I can not do it all yet, but I try to do everything and I get help on the things that I cannot do on my own yet, mostly the pull-ups and chin-ups. As we do our personal study when we come across things that we cannot figure out on our we can get help. There are many great study Bibles out there. You can also get assistance by writing down the questions that come up and asking someone who is spiritual more mature than you are, like a pastor or an elder, if they can help you with the question.
Spiritual health is not something that just happens. It takes work just like your physical health does. The process can be painful. The process can seem inconvenient. The process can seem trivial and not worth your time. However like your physical health, it is better to take care of your health while you are healthy to prevent disease and illness. It is easier to already be spiritually strong, having a strong faith, when times get rough, than to try to find your faith in times of trouble. It is easier to stay in shape, than to try to get back into shape after letting yourself go. So it is time to spiritually "start working!"
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