1 Timothy 4:7 Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives’ tales. Spend your time and energy in training yourself for spiritual fitness.
During the month of January we hear so many people talking about losing weight, cleansing, and getting on an exercise program to get fit. Look at the gossip rags in the checkout lines. It’s all about the physical side of life.
How many of us actually think about our spiritual fitness and ways to train for it?
If you look in 1 Timothy, Paul talks about: false teachings, God’s mercy, worship, leadership, truths of our faith, false teachers, being a good servant of Christ Jesus, advice about widows, elders and slaves and about false teaching and true riches.
We spend so much time thinking in the natural that it clouds our spiritual vision. It is so easy to be pulled away from spiritual training.
What is spiritual training? It is talking with the Lord and asking Him about His thoughts on all things, and spending time reading your Bible and thinking on what you have read, and it is about then doing what you have read through Him, with His help. We can’t love apart from Jesus because natural love falls far short of His love.
In my life, I have never felt more alive and healthy as when I am reaching out to others and loving them and helping them, even if only to give a listening ear.
I remember one freezing cold winter day a few years ago as I came out of Walmart, the Teen Challenge folks were out collecting money. I gave them some money and started talking with this guy. He was from Jamaica and he began to pour out his life story to me. As he was talking, inside I was asking the Lord for wisdom and how to help this young man. I honestly have no idea what I said to him, but when I left…….two hours later……he had a huge smile on his face and looked like a weight had been lifted from him. Praise Jesus! He knew what that young man needed to hear!
You love with all of Him in you and then sometimes you get the smack-doong-dangy as my husband says, but you keep loving anyway because that is what real love does. Paul says it like this:
1 Timothy 4:10 We work hard and suffer much in order that people will believe the truth, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and particularly of those who believe.
It takes Christ in you to respond in love when someone you love turns on you after you have poured yourself into that person. It takes knowing in your knower what the Lord has to say from His word (Bible) and then just allowing Him to touch others through you.
I had such an instance in my life. I had spent much time helping someone that is still very dear to me and whom I love very much. I spent nights with her, praying for her and holding her hand and soothing her when she had nightmares. (She had terrible, frightening nightmares and would shoot up in the bed shaking and terrified.) She began to get spiritually free when “friends” seemed to come out of the woodwork and tell her I was a freak. She eventually believed it and to this day I get weird looks from people and we aren’t close any more.
Having said that, my point is that I love her and to this day, if she needed me, I would be there in a flash……day or night, despite the hurt and the suffering that I have endured. She is worth it.
Had I not exercised my spiritual muscles in the love of Christ, I wouldn’t be able to respond in love.
Sometimes, it is easier just to watch mindless shows and read books that don’t feed you spiritually, but in the end it profits you nothing, nor will it help someone in need. It’s wasting time.
I want to encourage you all to seek Him and spiritual nourishment more than ever this year and watch as He touches others through you! Amen!
