Flex Your Spiritual Muscles!

Now that the summer is officially coming to a close, people are back to work, back to school, and back to the gym.  With that comes a lot of, "Now that the summer is over, and now that I'm finished having my fun, I'm going to go back to the gym and get back in shape; no more excuses!" We all know what happens once we proceed to go back after months of not working out; we don't have the endurance we once had; we are not flexible anymore; we tire easily; we run out of breath; and we cut our goals of working out for a full hour to half, promising ourselves that we are going to go back to the full hour once we are "back in shape" again.  Or, we proceed to try and do what we did  before we took a break, and experience crazy lactic acid leakage (a.k.a. super sore muscles); resulting in another week or so (and we all know weeks can turn into months) off so that we can "give ourselves time to heal." The only way to get rid of lactic acid is to push on, and through the pain until it the muscle is conditioned, and used to strenuous exercise again.  But, excuse, after excuse, after lousy excuse, for our laziness and/or lack of motivation, lets it get to that point.  Instead of doing something about it, we would rather complain, all the while neglecting our bodies the physical exercise it needs to maintain a healthy physical and mental physique, and we have no one to blame but ourselves when we look in the mirror.  Our spiritual health is growing weak in the same way--the more we submit to this world, the more comfortable we become with living in darkness. The less we work out our faith, the less we depend on God, and the more obese we become with the filthiness of this world.

Faith is just like any muscle that needs to be worked out regularly.  The more it is neglected,  the more it loses its power.  The less and less we "work out,"  the more weak we become.  Just as we loose our tone and defined muscles from lack of exercise, we loose confidence in our walk with God when we neglect our faith.  Try bench pressing anything after months  off and see what happens. Your arms feel as though they are detaching from their sockets because they've lost their strength.  The lack of motivation we have in ourselves causes us to become lazy in our walk--which is fresh meat for the devil to prey on.  Because we are born with carnal minds, Satan preys on us in our moments of weakness and lack of faith in Christ.  He will stop at nothing to turn our trust away from God (Romans 8:5-9), using pathetic rationalizatoins to convince us that there are other means by which to attain faith (i.e. If you are a "good person" then you don't have to be saved by Christ). Nothing can be further from the truth, and the sad part is, some of us who are saved know this, but we'd still rather take the easy way out.

All too often, we tend to give up quickly and grow impatient when we don't get immediate results from our work outs; just as the Children of Israel did when they built that golden calf(Exodus 32) becuase they grew tired of waiting on God. We live in a society of quick fixes to every day problems.  The lengths that people go to, to loose weight is astonishing.  Putting an attractive man or woman on a commercial or print advertisement, promising results fast or your money back is nothing more than marketing trickery.  Consumers tend to disregard the fine print informing them that whatever supplement they are taking, only works in conjunction with diet and exercise.  There isn't a magic pill out there that will make you fit over night.  It may curb your appetite or help burn calories, but it doesn't work, unless you do the work that goes along with it.  In this world of convenience, people want overnight results in all aspects of their lives--including their faith.  There is no substitute for good old fashioned goal setting and hard work--and its much cheaper than liposuction.

When we ask Jesus to come into our lives, we are immediately saved and sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30).  Jesus may save us, but it is what we do with our new found salvation is up to us.  God never said that our walk was supposed to be easy, but he did give  us a means to endure those difficult times (1 Corinthians 10:13),  and that is through our faith in Jesus.  But is our lack of patience that sucks the faith out of us, causing us to turn to the world for a quick fix, but what we don't always realize is that there are heavy consequences to pay for taking short cuts.  Take for example, professional sports players who take performance enhancing drugs to bulk up. One bad move like this has destroyed the careers of many of these athletes, and has tarnished their image of being positive role models to forever.  A quick fix won't enhance our walk with Christ, nor will it postively impact our daily lives.  Faith has to be lived in order for it to be built and matured.

A garden can't grow lush and green by watering itself, and the body cannot get in shape sitting on a couch night after night watching TV and eating salty, sugary snacks! Nor will the muscles become tone without oxygen being pumped to them during a work out.  Without oxygen, we would suffocate.  Without Jesus, we would be suffocating to the sins of this world. If we are not constantly flexing our muscle of faith, then what good did it do, asking Jesus to save us? Getting in shape physically is not easy when you haven't worked out in awhile, and the same holds true for our spiritual growth.   Jesus said, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me" (Luke 9:23).  His cross was not easy to bear, when he carried the sins of the entire world on it, but he didn't ask God for a Quick Trim way to get around it.  He carried ALL OF IT and took no shortcuts. Satan himself tried to tempt him into taking the easy way out and He refused  (Matthew 4:1-11).  Because He died, he gave us easy access to God, through Him, to do good work for Him.  He gave us the easy way to God, yet many of us (myself included) still have a habit of turning back to the world!  We rack up our "good deeds" thinking that they will score us  points with the Man, but works without faith is dead (James 2:14:17), and taking short cuts in an effort do His work is useless--you can't short cut your way into Heaven.

There's that old story about the man stranded in the ocean waiting for God to rescue him, and when a helicopter comes, he refuses, saying that God is going to save him.  Next comes the boat, and so forth. When he passes away and asks God, "Why didn't you save me?" God replies that he sent him means to be saved, but he rejected them.  God will help us, but we have to do our part.  If we are not living out our faith, and doing our part in our walk, there's only so much God can do.  He will reach down, but we have to reach up (analogy compliments of my husband, Chad!).  Our bodies require oxygen to breathe, and our muscles require it to grow strong.  As oxygen is vital for our survival, Jesus is vital to our living....forever.  With Him, we can stand firm in our faith on the foundation of truth (1 Corinthians 16:13), and the oxygen of his being that keeps us alive.

No more excuses.  Get to church (or the gym)!  Don't wait until after the holidays or just before and after the summer to stay in shape, which always results in, "Ugh....I have to go back to the gym!  I'm so out of shape! I wish I would have stuck to my routine!" We shouldn't be getting caught up in the likes of this world, but by no means should we be stuck in the same routine, either.  Stick to your routine (by routine, I mean consistently go to the gym), and don't forget to change it up from time to time--you don't want to get used to one thing and remain in it, either--your body will get too used to the same movements and you won't see results.  Study different books of the bible,  do something nice for someone just because, and flex your muscle of faith for Jesus!  You will see a change--GUARANTEED (and you won't need your money back because your fortune is waiting for you in Heaven).