God's Gym

"Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him."

Philippians 2:12-13

      If God owned a gym, I'm sure He would call it something in reference to faith. The Holy Spirit would be your personal trainer, and He would be given a customized training regiment designed to prepare you for the race He has laid out for you.

      As we read the above scripture, we know the apostle Paul was addressing the church in Philippi. The culture during the time period of this letter was that of a prosperous city with and international flair, due to it's strategic location. It was once consider the foremost city in Macedonia.
      Paul new that the infant church there, was certainly being persecuted. He wrote to encourage them in their faith, and to not get caught up in verbal sparring, but to show their faith by being obedient to God.
      Paul's message is still relevant to us today, but we far too often measure ourselves by the people around us. We are always looking at the physical traits of someones faith or we compare ourselves to "the lost", like their sub-human.
      Which is why I've always wondered why they put those huge mirrors up in a gym. They must know, we who are feeble and out-of-shape, are always comparing ourselves to the "Atlas" men and women around us. In some regards, it's rather defeating. We are all guilty of looking at what is seen, so we can feel confident we are doing well. I think Paul knew this about his friends in Philippi.  
 
      Trusting God with your life, means more than saving your skin from eternal judgement. He promises in John 10:10 that "...He came to give us life, and that we may have it more abundantly." What most of us do, is stop there. Then we begin to question "Why?"; Why would He do that for me?
      When sin entered the world, we were all genetically passed on the trait of self-love and self-worship. What we have been tricked to ignore, has been the trait of shame.
     Shame is not necessarily unavoidable, but when we begin to compare ourselves to others or even what Jesus showed us was righteous living, we immediately feel shame.
     Satan is really clever when it comes to this emotion. It doesn't take much of a push to get us steamrolling down this path. All he has to do, is make us doubt.
     Doubt is a good thing, when it causes you to question and seek the truth. It becomes divisive when we allow it to turn to unbelief. That is why Solomon says in Proverbs 3:5-6 to "...lean not on your own understanding." Our minds and our hearts are wicked, genetically.
    So why is it so hard to trust God? Why do I doubt He really cares THAT MUCH for me?

    Let's step away from scripture for a moment, and look at the ginormous industry of fitness and weight-loss.
    One of the main reasons our society is over-weight and out-of-shape is the invention of modern convenience. We are all guilty of justifying our gadgets, cars, favorite fast-food. We may even think up new ways to make easy and quick, quicker and easier.
    What we don't realize, is that we are falling into Satan's hands with our slothful, gluttonous ways. We begin to buy in to the lie that "we deserve it." Then one day we wake up, look in the mirror, and ask "What happened?" Or we take a walk, (foreign concept these days, I know), up a hill or a flight of stairs. We stop somewhere between the bottom and the top gasping for air like someone was sitting on our chest.
    We watch programs like "Biggest Loser" and secretly wish someone would knock on your door, and kick our butt into shape like one of those TV trainers.

    When you give your life over to God, I believe that is what He is trying to accomplish. When we profess with our mouth Jesus is Lord and fall under His Lordship in our life; we are asking Him to reprogram our thinking and whip us into His masterpiece.
     Why? What for?
    Since the beginning of time, God the Father, has been calling all of creation back into fellowship with Him. He even gave up His only Son to express how much He loves it. He has invited US, creation made in His image, to take on His yoke in bringing redemption to all of creation.
Can He use us in the stained, broken, out-of-shape condition we are in? No.
    Now if I stopped right there, Satan would have a field day, and back the truck of shame up and dump it all over us. But I won't.....because our Father who lives in heaven desires to wash away our past, forgive our future, and cover us in the blameless and righteous blood of His Son Jesus Christ......But He doesn't stop there!!
    He then begins to use circumstances, testing, trials, and pain to refine us back into His image. Sin did more than just destroy our relationship with God, it destroyed the whole of creation. Only through sacrifice and pain, do we remember and learn.

    Paul addresses to the Philippians the need to work out their salvation for themselves. No one will do it for us. Just like in the gym, no matter how good your trainer is, you will not begin to transform your body, until you do the work.
    Be careful not to interpret me saying we must work to earn our salvation. No, we must be obedient to the plan God has for our life, and work hard in His instruction. Salvation is a free gift. Our work-out regimen is not mandatory. But when God enters your life, He is not content with you being anything less than the best you can be. He will not stop pursuing you, until you fully surrender to Him having His way with you.

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us."

 Hebrews 12:1 

Is the whole batch ruined with just a little poo?

       My pastor preached a sermon recently on 1 Corinthians 5:6. Paul is addressing the church in Corinth about allowing sinful people to exist within their fellowship. Paul uses bread dough to illustrate this point.
       Paul asks "Don't you realize that sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?" His thought is quite profound, and I think we need to sit up and pay attention. Too many churches have "yeast" or sin, running wild throughout our congregations, but most of us defer responsibility to do something about it to someone else. Before we know it the "yeast" has consumed the group and we've all become sour.
       My pastor asked this question. Suppose you have a batch of chocolate brownies, and somehow a little doggie poo fell into the batter. Is the whole batch ruined? It's not like it was a lot, maybe just a pinch. Isn't it still edible? Suppose it was just in one corner of the pan, couldn't you eat around it?
       If you answered NO to these questions, then you would agree with Paul. Sin, no matter how small, if allowed to exist in our congregations, will infiltrate the whole.
       Please don't hear me saying the church should be filled with self-righteous, condescending, holier-than-thou, people; for we all sin and fall short of God's glorious standard (Romans 3:23).
But, I believe if we are all working toward the goal of abiding in Christ, surrendering ourselves to the Holy Spirit, and straining toward the goal of sanctification; we are getting rid of the poo.
It would be easy to just insulate ourselves from sinful people, and live sanctified lives separate from the outside world. In fact many early churches practiced this behavior. Some religions today still behave this way.
       In Luke 5:32 Jesus tells us the reason he wanted to establish his church:

"I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”

       So if Jesus came to save the lost, then why do we continue to orbit within our church meetings? We spend more time praying for ourselves and the needs of our friends than we ever spend praying for those outside our social orbit. Why?
Don't worry you are not alone, Paul addresses the church in Corinth on this issue in vs. 9 of chapter 5:

 ^"When I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin."

No problem, right? I can avoid people who dress sexy, talk dirty, and flirt uncontrollably. What Paul says next gets to the core of our conversation:

 ^10 "But I wasn’t talking about UNBELIEVERS who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. ¹¹ I meant that you are not to associate with anyone who claims to be a BELIEVER^[a] yet indulges in sexual sin, or is greedy, or worships idols, or is abusive, or is a drunkard, or cheats people. Don’t even eat with such people."

     Seems pretty harsh, but this goes back to a little poo among believers. Paul is not saying one or two believers who indulge in sin are okay, as long as the rest are strong Christians. No he says we aren't to "even eat with such people."
If we open our doors to sinful BELIEVERS and lower the entrance fee so all BELIEVERS can come in, then we have muted the Good News. We must be set apart from the things of this world, but not insulated from it. What should we do then? Paul answers that question in vs. 12-13 of chapter 5:

^12 "It isn’t my responsibility to judge outsiders, but it certainly is your responsibility to judge those inside the CHURCH(the people of God, not the meeting) who are sinning. ¹³ God will judge those on the outside; but as the Scriptures say, “You must remove the evil person from among you.”"^[a]

      So why do we spend most of our lives avoiding unbelievers? Why do we condemn them for being lost and doing only what lost people do?
When I was a student in high school we were always told to avoid parties and people who acted lost, because they might influence us to sin and stumble. Besides we don't want to do anything that might "ruin your witness." What I think we were being told, is don't do anything that might ruin what self-righteous people might think of you. Maybe we were never modeled on how to "not be of the world, but in the world."

'For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.' John 3:17

If we don't spend time with unbelievers, how will they ever hear the Good News of Jesus Christ.
      Interesting fact about the early church: God's people never claimed the name Christian for themselves. They were given that name by people on the outside of the faith because they saw Christ's teachings being lived out. When was the last time someone said that about you?