1 Timothy 4:8

New International Version (NIV)

For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come

For meditation

I walked pass a packed gym two nights ago towards the barber shop. The patrons were busily working out and flexing their muscles. I encouraged myself with a funny idea of developing the same biceps by pounding fufu, a delicacy of the Ashantis of Ghana. Anybody who knows it can testify to the workout involved.

The day after, I went for my morning walk through the park. I came across a group of people working out, not in a gym, but in the open air. A CD player was blasting some disco music and the people were seriously engaged in aerobics and some stretching exercises.  As the music faded behind me, my mind was inundated with a series of questions. The notable one was:

“Where is your gym?”

Obviously I don’t have one, but the questions continued.

“If all Christians were concerned with their spiritual health with the same seriousness as those people have for their physical health, how different would things be? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have spiritual gyms where people could go and exercise and flex their spiritual muscles as these ones and those in the gym yesterday? How powerful the church would be!”

I protested that Christians have their prayer closets, like the one in the movie, War Room. We have fellowship meetings for Bible Study, mid-week Bible studies and prayer meetings, Sunday school and, of course, the worship service on Sundays. Are they not our “gyms?” The answer came in a counter question.

“How many rigorously engage the Lord in personal devotion and Bible study? How many attend those services, apart from the Sunday worship service? How serious is their attitude and concentration? Are they really there for spiritual exercise, as those in the gym and the park? Why don’t we see it in their lives as we see in those who engage in physical exercises?” I got the point.

Paul said that “Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for the present life and the life to come” (2 Tim. 4:8). We should by all mean work out and get our bodies in shape. That’s not the problem.  The issue is with our attitudes, determination, discipline and consistency in our spiritual training. We do due diligence to the temporal, but slack on the eternal.

1. What’s your take on this?
2. Do you work out in a gym?
3. Are you as concerned about your spiritual condition as you are with your physical condition?
4. Do you give your spiritual life, the same attention as the physical?
5. Are you that committed and disciplined in the things of God?

I pray you are.

So: May you pursue godliness with a jealous zeal; and may you grow in holiness, without which, “no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).

Shalom