Christian Living

Spritually Bloated or Spiritually Fit

by Terry Barlow
09/01/17
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   While venturing out on a recent assignment it occurred to me how we in the American church and in the Western church in general are bloated with so much spiritual food and so many spiritual resources that have yet to be shared or practically applied. In this stored up form what was intended for growth and for good becomes a blockage and so much excess weight. But as we spring into motion and begin to “go out” and share it with others, allowing it to flow THROUGH us and not merely TO us, the content of it all begins to clarify and simplify. Too much consumption without exercise is as bad a combination spiritually as it is physically. We become like one of the 60,000 fans in the stands at a game on Saturday or Sunday who are in desperate need of a workout watching the handful of athletes who are in desperate need of a rest! The athletes on the field know they need a rest, but the spectators in the stands may not know they need exercise. We can become so accustomed to inactivity that we don’t even recognize it as inactive, or so habituated to the blockage and the weight that we don’t consider it excessive. We tend to think we have to be some kind of expert or that it has to be done perfectly.  But Jesus will teach us as we go, as he did his earlier disciples.  
   Christianity and the spiritual walk are not a spectator sport, they are not a sport at all, they are seriously participatory. “So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any PARTICIPATION (my caps)in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind….” (Philippians 2, v.1&2) And remember, for example, how Jesus involved the disciples in the miracle of the loaves and fish; he did the actual multiplying but they did the distributing. (Mark Chapter 8, verse 6)  Or how Jesus involved others in bringing Lazarus back from the dead as they unwrapped the gravecloths from his face and body once he had emerged from the grave.  (See John Chapter 11)  Praise God, what a privilege and an honor to work alongside our Savior that way! And what a great way to cultivate and maintain spiritual fitness through a responsive relationship with Him.