Good morning
Zebras,
I love you.
Yesterday I was
reading my Essentials of Exercise Science and I came across this: “The focus of
fitness professionals into the foreseeable future will likely be on strategies
to get people to start exercising and to keep exercising regularly.”
And I thought,
“What is the best way to encourage someone to start something new?”
Personally, I
think it is to start it yourself and then when others take notice encourage them
to join in, a strategy which applies to our faith as well.
If you lose
weight or gain muscle people notice and ask you what you have done. In the same way if you allow the presence of
the Holy Spirit to change you, to make you kinder, more loving, less frustrated
and stressed and more at peace, people may notice and ask.
It is funny how
quickly we have an answer for weight loss or muscle gain, how happy we are to
tell others about our new “wonder” diet or the exercise program we started but
we should be just as happy and excited about telling them about Jesus.
Forty years
ago, not long after my salvation, God set me free from my obsession with
food. I was so happy! For over twenty years food and I had been on
bad terms, either it was winning or I was, there had never been a time of truce.
I still clearly
remember the moment I gave the credit for what I knew to be a miracle to
something else.
My boss came to
ask me how I was losing weight and I joyfully told her about Jesus setting me
free. But that wasn’t the answer she was
looking for, so she kept pushing. Eventually,
she got me to confess to exercising more and limiting my calorie intact. That was what she wanted to hear, a
practical, rational explanation which allowed her to dismiss everything I had
said about God.
In my exercise journal,
every day I write two things: “Being able to do this is God’s gift to me.” and
“Every day is an exciting opportunity to exercise the power, love and self-control
You have placed within me.” Truths found
in the following verses:
Philippians
4:13: I can do all things through him
who strengthens me.
2 Timothy 1:7: For God did not give us a spirit of timidity,
but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.
God can do all
things through and for those who believe, but I wholeheartedly believe He doesn’t
want His glory given to the vehicles or men He uses.
Isaiah 42:8: I am the Lord;
that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.
1 Corinthians
3:5–7: What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the
Lord assigned to each. I planted,
Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who
waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
The old hymn “To
God Be the Gory!” says it all.
This video is well
worth three minutes of your time.
Love,
Jill
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