By Dennis Rainey
These are VERY challenging days … from sickness … to lockdowns … to job loss … to justice issues … to the election … and now the attack on the Capitol. ALL of us need to be in shape, spiritually speaking, to process and respond to all that’s coming at us and our families.
I remember the year I joined a workout club to shed some unwanted pounds. When I arrived for the first time I stood in the workout room doorway looking at all the slim and trim, toned and tuned hardbodies. My greatest fear was that they would all look up at me and simultaneously fall to the floor laughing hysterically.
After enduring the humiliation of walking to the locker room and changing into my sweat suit (I wish I had arrived already dressed), I noticed two things. First the room was full of all sorts of weight machines designed to strengthen different muscle groups. Second, I couldn’t help but notice the mirrors. They were everywhere. I felt like I was in some sort of narcissistic cathedral. Although others stared at their bodies in the mirrors, I ignored the mirrors—I didn’t need a grim image refresher. I already knew what I looked like.
As I began to move from station to station using muscles that must have wondered what prompted their agonizing from their abrupt promotion from hibernation, a Scripture began to pound in my ears:
… discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come (1 Timothy 4:7-8, NASB).
The word “profitable” is used in this passage to contrast “gain” in two worlds—the physical and the spiritual. The perishable and imperishable. As I began to perspire I thought about my own perishing muscles and the truth of that Scripture.
Focusing on spiritual conditioning
Here I was, moving from machine to machine, an out-of-shape, plump glob of mid-life molecules, surrounded by the “saints of Muscledonia.” But I couldn’t help pondering how, after decades of attempting to obey God and walk with Him, the spiritual conditioning was paying off in my life.
No, I didn’t envision myself as some kind of spiritual hunk or hard body, but I did think about the growth (by the grace of God) that had occurred—what I’d learned about loving people, developing a blueprint for handling life’s struggles, creating peace and harmony (for the most part) at home and in the marketplace, and most importantly, learning to exercise and trust God.
Then it hit me: What the Christian community needs is a spiritual workout center—a sort of spiritual weight machines with different stations to strengthen our faith “muscles.” A “Heaven Fitness” Club to work out and melt our spiritual flabbiness, a place to flex and tone our unused muscles of the faith, a place where Christians could go to be built up and not torn down. A place to go see others who have faithfully worked out and applied the spiritual disciplines over a lifetime.
As I left those muscle toning machines to go on a jog, I began to design my spiritual faith-building center. I began to think about the individual stations where certain muscles of faith could be stretched and flexed. I pondered my need for my personal faith-muscles to be toned and tuned—I now realize that more and more stamina is demanded with each passing year.
Here’s my question for you: As you start this new year, with all of its visible (and it’s invisible) faith-testing challenges, why not select a couple of areas to stretch your faith muscles with biblical exercises, designed by Almighty God just for you?
The tongue
“Heaven Fitness” Club’s first spiritual workout station would be a machine that produces little sweat, but incredible results. This machine would help bridle the tongue. Posted above this faith-building aparatus would be the following verse:
If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person's religion is worthless. (James 1:26)
By controlling this slab of muscle, one could refrain from critical, harsh, or angry words. This would be an excellent machine for Christians whose slimy slab of mucous membrane is used to tell off-color jokes or talk about people behind their back, or for any saint who hasn’t yet swept clean his vocabulary.
Sets of exercises could be developed that would train the tongue to form words of appreciation, praise, and encouragement for those who do the laundry, clean house, do yard work, manage the money in the household—and for those who meet the needs of a growing family. Also a special exercise would ingrain in the tongue the ability to give thanks in all things—something that’s not easy, even for the most muscle-bound saint (so I’ve been told).
The eyes<