Exercise spirit and body

I have recently begun to exercise. We all know our bodies need a certain amount of exercise to be healthy. It is not always an easy thing to do, but it is necessary for our overall health.

But more than just our physical bodies need to be exercised. Our spiritual bodies need exercise also. We exercise our spiritual bodies by reading our Bibles, praying, and gathering for corporate worship.

Everyone should read at least a chapter in their Bible every day. This is God’s Love Letter to us and our Instruction Book. It is The Bible itself that will tell us what God loves, what He hates, and what He expects of us. It gives us wisdom to guide our lives by and is full of “Life Lessons” we can learn from. It also contains some of the most beautiful literature the world has ever seen. I have never met anyone who believed the Bible to be irrelevant to our lives who had actually read it.

It is sad how many people who have been Christians for years have never read their Bibles. It is the foundational document for our faith and our country as well as being the best selling book of all time, yet most who claim to believe it never actually even read it. We are not only cheating ourselves of its great wisdom, we are setting ourselves up to be deceived. Study the Bible as if you were going to be tested on it, because that is what life is…a test! The Bible is the answer key.

Prayer is our time of talking to God. We don’t need fancy, pre-written poems to pray. God is our Friend and we can talk to Him just like we would talk to our neighbor. He is interested in our lives and wants to be involved. But He is a gentleman; he won’t barge into your life. You have to invite Him. By talking to Him everyday you build a relationship with Him that allows Him to help you in times of trouble and lets Him guide you to help others.

Prayer involves a time of pouring out our concerns to our “Daddy God,” a time of telling Him “Thank You” for our blessings, and a time to be quiet and let Him speak into our hearts. We need this fellowship with Him and so desperately wants it with us.

Church time is a time of gathering together with others who love God to learn more about Him and to worship Him. He craves our praise and will in turn strengthen us when we worship Him. The Bible commands us to praise God and to “Not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is;” (Hebrews 10:25). There is nothing more beautiful than a room full of worshipers lifting their voices together in praise of the Great I Am.

We also need this time of being with other believers to strengthen and stretch us. We need each other to be accountable to for our walk with God. We are to help each other along the way and care for each other. We can’t do this if we don’t know each other and are never together. Church time is a time to build these bonds with others that are commanded in the Bible to be so much a part of our lives.

Exercising the spirit is much like exercising the body; it is a habit that must be built. It takes time and determination to build those habits, but it is more than worth it. Why not start today?