Diet and Exercise

“Listen diligently to Me, and eat what is good,

And delight yourselves in rich food.”

Isaiah 55:2b

I love going for long walks with our dog Molly and with Linda.  Any of you who follow my facebook page know this.  I often post my walks on Facebook.  Its sort of an accountability exercise.  You’ll notice however that I don’t post what I have been eating each day.  That’s probably where I need some real accountability.  After all losing and controlling weight takes both good exercise and good diet.  And in fact I do have many people trying to get me to eat better – Linda, my ministry coaches – Jerry and Bill, my kids – especially my daughter in-law Anna.  My kids with Anna’s help even developed a year-long booklet for me to encourage me to be healthier. Let s face it, I need to lose weight.  To do that takes both good exercise and good diet.  I am really good and disciplined about exercising almost every day.  But as you can tell, all the exercise in the world won’t help me lose weight if I don’t start to eat better. 

Diet and Exercise!  It strikes me that both are important for us spiritually!  Feeding your faith properly and exercising that faith daily are both essential to growing your faith.  What concerns me is our spiritual diet.  In every place I have served as Pastor, I have been concerned by the size of the Bible classes.  I have wondered, “Why aren’t more people in Bible study? Why aren’t people so hungry for God’s Word that they would hate to ever miss a Bible study opportunity?”  I know the excuses – “I am too busy”.  “I went to confirmation.  I know enough.”  I am embarrassed to go to Bible class because I don’t know as much as others.”  “Bible Class is boring.”  I have used the excuses.  Sometimes if I am too busy or get up too late, I skip my devotion time.”  Friends if we aren’t feeding our faith it will hurt how we exercise that faith.  The temptations we struggle with will get the best of us.  Life will be robbed of joy and contentment.  We may notice our spiritual anemia in a lack of kindness and short temper.  In your spiritual life, as in your physical life, diet and exercise are both important.

My wife is a good cook and when Linda starts making one of her delicious meals, I can’t wait to eat all the good food she has made.  Well, our God lays out such a gourmet spiritual feast for us daily right here in His Word.  Here in His word He speaks to us His law and Gospel – bringing us face to face with the reality of our sin and then freely offering us a feast of forgiveness life and /Salvation in Jesus Christ.  Here in the Word is the “Power of God unto salvation for all believe.” (Romans 1:16)    This word is “able to make you wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:15b-17)

I know that many food diets fail because you have to eat a diet of foods that you don’t really enjoy, a diet you simply can’t eat for the rest of your life.  That’s what is great about the diet God offers us.  Here He offers us “rich food,” the delicious food of His word.  Listen to how He describes this diet in Isaiah 55.  “ Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in rich food.”  That’s why in this blog I don’t spend a lot of time expressing opinions on the events of the day or engaging in political debate.  Oh I may mention them but that is not my purpose.  My purpose is that you and I would feast on God’s Word, may hear how that Word applies to our lives and experiences.  My prayer is that our hunger for the Word of God would grow… that we would have a good healthy balance in our spiritual diet and exercise.