Saturday, February 22, 2014

Spiritual Fitness

On television and radio, infomercials on weight loss, are aired daily. To get the beach body, you want for the summer, commercials and magazine advertisements begin popping up during the holiday season. Slim and muscular actors/actresses are paid by sponsors to educate us on what to eat, drink, and the best type of workout equipment to use. They make claims that buying these items will give you the same bodies, as they.
But, have you ever thought about what it takes to get your spiritual man fit? It also takes the same, if not more dedication and effort to live a healthy Christian lifestyle. Food and liquids are not the temptation in this plight. Sin, is the cause of a believer’s spiritual weight gain. The negative things we partake of become stumbling blocks to our spiritual well-being.

What are the differences between physical and spiritual fitness?

Physical Fitness
A state of physiologic wellbeing, achieved through a combination of good diet, regular physical exercise, and other practices that promotes good health.

Spiritual Fitness
A state of spiritual wellbeing, achieved through faith that comes only by meditating on the Word of God, daily. The study of His sacred word helps the believer to become spiritually strong and fit to conquer any task set before them.

Training our physical bodies cannot help us with life’s challenges and struggles. There are invisible hurdles placed before each of us that only spiritual strength can help us cross. Life, within itself is far more difficult than a marathon, because it is ongoing. Only studying the Word of God can prepare us for this journey. The Hebrew writer advises us to lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily overwhelm us (Hebrews 12:1-2). Sin causes us to pack on the spiritual pounds. Hatred, envy, prejudice, jealousy, malice, and backbiting are excess weights that prevent us from reaching our spiritual potential.

You are not alone in your spiritual weight loss quest. The people you encounter and interact with from day to day struggle with the same challenges, as you. Only some are striving to obtain a corruptible body (tone and sleek) that will return to the dust from whence it came. And Christian’s seek to achieve a glorified body that will one day return to their heavenly Father.

Everyone can win this spiritual fitness challenge, but it takes ridding ourselves of things that will prevent us from doing so. Adultery, evil thoughts, and sexual perversion, etc., no longer have to be the spiritual pounds keeping us from reaching our goals. God’s Word has already given us victory over these obstacles in our lives. Like those who have taken the spiritual weight loss challenge before us and rejoiced over their results, so can we (Hebrews 12:1-2). 

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