2^nd & 3^rd July

Weekend Edition

“Do not waste your time arguing over godless ideas and old wives tales. Instead, train yourself to be Godly. “Physical training is good, but training for Godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.””

1 Timothy 4:7-8

Many people invest a lot of time in trying to get fit. Hours spent in gyms, strict eating regimes, and disciplined lifestyles. These are not bad. In fact, as Christians we should be encouraged to look after our bodies, as they are temple of God. Yet what is the point in investing so much in our physical appearance and health if we allow our spiritual man to wither away and die? For it is our souls that lives on long after our physical bodies have perished. So how do we stay spiritually fit? Well, both private and corporate exercise.

Spending time in personal spiritual exercise is essential in the Christian faith. Reading the word of God and letting it feed your soul, spending time in prayer with our Father and resting in His presence are key tools in our spiritual fitness program. Yet corporate exercise is just as important as personal or private spiritual exercise. We are in a journey together with our brothers and sisters and we need each other to encourage, lift us up when we are feeling weak, and to also invest in our spiritual lives. To do this, we need to meet regularly, praying together, worshipping together and growing together in Christ.

Finally when we serve the body of Christ, in whatever form that takes, we start putting our spiritual investments and training into practice. We then start to grow even deeper in our walk with God. We are saved to serve. It is there that our time invested in the ‘spiritual gym’ (personal exercise), comes good. As the Apostle Paul quoted, ‘physical training is good, but training for Godliness is much better!’ May we filter out our lives, disregarding anything that will make us spiritually lazy and invest into our spiritual lives, both for this life and in the next.