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Spiritual Fitness
by Jerry Ousley During my life there have been several periods when I thought, "I've got to get myself into physical shape." It happens when I climb the stairs too many times and get out of breath. It happens when I bend over to pick something up and feel all the blood rushing to my face. It happens when my back hurts from doing a little bit of physical work. I know I'm not in good physical shape. So I resolve to begin riding the exercise bike so conveniently out of sight in our basement. That usually lasts a few days before I take a day off and forget to start up again. Or I'll state that I'm going to begin walking every day until it rains and I just stop. It's funny how one day of breaking the routine seems to be excuse enough to stop altogether. I'll cut back on eating for a while. Actually I'll do okay until craving strikes. Perhaps you've got more will-power than I have, but all I've got to do is tell myself that I've done a good job and deserve a little reward by eating a piece of chocolate cake or something. That's all it takes! Boom, I'm right back to where I was. We can slide through life out of shape and not being physically fit. It may cost us something later down the road but we'll generally get through. But when it comes to our spiritual condition it is a different matter entirely. A lot of people may excuse themselves by saying something like, "I'll get right with God someday," or, "God understands my heart." We can come up with excuses can't we? The truth is that God does understand our hearts. He does know what our spiritual condition is and whether we're making excuses or we really mean it. Some people think that going to church makes up for a poor spiritual condition. They may assume that because they give in the offering or volunteer to spend an afternoon here and there doing community work makes up for their lack of a relationship with God. But it doesn't. You see even though God does want us to do things for His Kingdom, those things can never make us spiritually fit. There's only one way to do that: Have a right relationship with God. There's an interesting portion of scripture in the Old Testament that kind of explains this; Micah 6:6-8 says, "With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?" Someone even wrote a song about this verse. To be spiritually fit we must do these three things: live right. Living right doesn't save us but when put together with the last item it goes a long way. To live right means that we live to please God being kind to others and doing what we're supposed to do. Secondly we are to love mercy. Having mercy means that we don't demand hard things on others even though we may have every right. Mercy is compassion. Mercy is a good definition of what we call the Golden Rule: "Do to others as you'd like for them to do to you." They might deserve worse but what if the shoe was on the other foot? How'd you like for them to react to you if the roles were reversed? Then we are to walk humbly with God. That requires a personal relationship. When we have come to Christ and seek Him daily in our lives, loving mercy and living justly aren't such hard chores. Our relationship with Jesus sets the pace for our program of spiritual fitness. Are you ready to exercise? Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge. Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |