Walking Towards Spiritual Fitness

Do you ever feel like you’re slipping with your faith? You just can’t seem to keep steady with doing what you know it takes to be a good Christian. You just can’t be that perfect projection of what’s perceived to be the “perfect Christian”.

Well believe me, true spiritual growth requires effort and diligence, and it takes time. It’s not a one shot deal. There’ll be constant battles. But just like physical fitness, you’ve gotta keep getting back out there, and start back working out, and start consuming things that are good for your mind, body, and soul.

So let’s look at physical fitness:

Here you go again. You try to do a few pushups and discover that certain body parts refuse to leave the floor. You get winded just saying the words "5k".

You come to the conclusion that, if God really wanted you to touch your toes, He would’ve put them somewhere around your knees.

You turn around a few times in the mirror, trying to decide what part you need to work on first. That’s when it hits you. The first thing you need to work on is “your sense of humor”. My LORD….

You step on one of those talking scales and it says, "Only one person at a time, please".

So you go online and get one of those new step tracking devices, and start walking, trying to get to those 10,000 steps per day.

But, just like a new born Christian, or one getting back into their studies, your walk may:

• Have a little Limp

• Be ever so Smooth

• Be Fast or easy

• have a Slow Drag

• or, even have a few setbacks AMEN

They say that walking is one of the best exercises there is for your heart and lungs. But obviously, there’s more than one kind of walk.

Walking is healthy, but spiritual walking is also very healthy for a person. Spiritual walking is the best walking yet, “10,000 steps a day, 10,000 steps toward your spiritual best”.

How about this! 10,000 words a month, out of the book that has “the greatest stories ever told, and the most powerful movies ever written”. AMEN

In the book of Timothy, it states that you should take the time and the trouble to keep yourself spiritually fit.

1 Timothy 4:7-8 states "But refuse profane and old wives' fables, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness. For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

My message today is……. Walking toward Spiritual Fitness

Right now our nation is caught up in a fitness craze. Physical fitness has become a billion dollar business in the United States and continues to grow. At any given time you can find the latest “infomercial” on television or the internet, featuring the latest fitness product on the market.

I especially like the old names of the fitness equipment that seem to hang around like: “The Thigh Master”. “The Abdominizer” and the old “Gut-Buster”

Even more so, I love the added slogans that sell over and over and over again: “If you order now we’ll send you “free”, our latest training videos on: “Abs of Steel” and “Buns of Steel”. And for our first fifty orders we’ll also include “The Luther Vandross Guide to Nutrition and health; the Later Years”.

Whether it’s “Kick boxing with Billy Blanks, Working out with “Wii Fit” a game of “Baseball with Xbox”, or a multitude of workout apps, they all promise the same thing: If you follow their training plan, you can be physically fit in a matter of days. Yeah right!

And just when you think you’ve seen it all, you flip through the magazines and notice a picture of someone hooked up to several electrodes on various muscles on their body. The advertisement states that gyms and fitness centers are a thing of the past.

All you need to do now is to hook up to the various electrodes that will send an electric current to stimulant the muscles, and work them out while you watch TV. Oh My Lord….

Sales techniques are all they are, someone selling you a quick fix, or even a lie. The devil does the same thing, “Don’t worry about church, it’s too boring and takes too much time. So come on out and party with me.

If you come right now, you might even be able to get high and experience life like no other.

But God says study to show thyself approved. Just as you have to visit your doctor before starting a physical fitness routine, you have to study your bible in order to understand how to become spiritual fit.

2 Timothy 2:15 states Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.