Do You Know Your Spiritual Fitness?

As your spiritual life goes, so goes the rest of your life. As you look at the dashboard of your life and check your spiritual gauge, what lights are flashing? What are you learning about your life right now? This instrument is vital in helping you measure where you really are in your walk with Jesus Christ.

Your spiritual life will never outpace your intentional commitment to prioritize it in your life daily. Your deliberate commitment to walking daily with Christ is imperative to your spiritual success.

The development of your spiritual life impacts every area of your life. You cannot delegate your spiritual development to any- one else. It is impossible! This is up to you to do completely.

Over Christmas break during my college years, my brother asked me to build a barn for him. He is a much more gifted carpenter than I, but he was trying to help me out. Even though this was not in my skill set or passion, I needed the money. I was able to accomplish the task, but the barn did not stand the test of time. In a few years, the barn began to lean and eventually became unsafe. My brother would’ve been better off to build the barn himself than to delegate something to me I was not able to properly do.

Just as this was not a wise decision relating to a barn, we cannot expect someone else to build our spiritual lives for us. A barn is one thing, but no one can construct your daily walk with God. It has to be intentional, purposeful, and personal. It is up to you.

You have to realize this: God desires to have a meaningful relationship with you daily. With Him, you are never put on hold and you never have to stand in line. He does not delegate you to one of the angels who serves Him. He is always waiting on you to come to Him.

After reading it over and over again for years, I am still blown away by the reality of this verse: “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you” (James 4:8). This is a call for us to come near to God and pursue Him intentionally. Because of what Christ accomplished on the cross, you have the capacity to approach God.

You can enter into His presence. In fact, He desires to have your love and complete allegiance to Him.

Think of it this way: You can go to God anytime, anywhere, about anything. Through Jesus Christ, you have direct access to God.

When we think of becoming fit, we most often think of this in relationship to the human body. We call this physical fitness. But it is rare that we think about spiritual fitness. I want to challenge you to completely adjust your mind-set about this. Why?

We are called to intentionally raise the level of our fitness in five pivotal areas of life. This holistic approach becomes a winning plan. The degree of your fitness in these five areas will determine your level of impact and influence upon others.

Of these five areas, none is more important than your spiritual life and its level of fitness. Again, as your spiritual life goes, so goes the rest of your life. If you cannot be consistent and successful in developing your spiritual life, it will negatively affect the other four areas of your fitness. Moreover, if you achieve some semblance of success in the other four areas without a healthy spiritual life, it will all be for nothing. As Jesus put it, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36 esv).

It is your spiritual life that will command into order the physical, relational, financial, and emotional areas of your life. Why do I believe this?

When the Bible speaks, God speaks. What God says, He means. Look at what God says here: “But have nothing to do with pointless and silly myths. Rather, train yourself in godliness. For the training of the body has limited benefit, but godliness is beneficial in every way, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Tim. 4:7–8). Vigorously exercise yourself in responding to God personally and passionately.

Just as an athlete trains his body and calls it into submission to his will, we need to call our spiritual life into complete submission to the will of God. This takes self-control, personal discipline, and intentional, specific actions.

Excerpted with permission from Living Fit by Ronnie Floyd. Copyright 2018, B&H Publishing Group.