My thoughts on exercising our faith...

I have been searching for a simple but relevant Bible Study/Devotional to use in my Wednesday night exercise class at church called "Exercise Your Faith." In all of my searching, I have come up empty-handed. So I started studying my bible and taking notes a couple of months ago and have decided to write my own stuff. This week is an introduction to why I enjoy exercise and do it as unto the Lord. Feel free to comment and or suggest. Enjoy! I will write about Nicaragua as soon as I get my pictures organized.

IMPORTANCE OF EXERCISE

1 Corinthians 6:19 & 20

“Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” NASB

1 Timothy 4:7

“Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.” NASB

Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit: the Holy Spirit (HS) lives within every believer. What an awesome privilege! When we ask Jesus to come into our lives He literally takes up residence in us. At the moment of conversion the indwelling of the HS gives us everything that we need to live our lives “for the purpose of Godliness”.

We are not our own: it’s not up to us what we look like, how we think & process, who our families consist of, & etc. However, as humans we like to think it possible to live as though we are in control of these things. But Solomon tells us in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” And then he explains in 16:3 that if we, “Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.” We must allow God to use us to reveal Himself to the world. It’s not about God’s will for us, but His will through us.

We have been bought with a price: Jesus paid it all and God gave up His son. It is a gift and privilege from God that He sent His son to die for us. He made the way for us or “paid the price” for our sins. We admit that we are unworthy because of our sin; we believe that Jesus is God’s son and He died on a cross bearing all our sin, and rose three days later; we profess Jesus as our Savior. The end result is the indwelling of the HS in our bodies, and our bodies are not our own. God gave us, as believers, our bodies to use for His service, so we are responsible for taking care of it.

Glorify God in your body:

1 Peter 4:10 tells us, “As each one has received a gift, let him minister it to one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.” Usually this verse is used in relevance to spiritual gifts, but it’s also useful in thinking about our responsibilities with tangible gifts from God. Our jobs, our families, our homes, our money, and our bodies are all gifts from God. We are to be stewards, or managers, of everything that God had blessed us with. And we can use all of these gifts (and MANY more that aren’t mentioned here) to minister to one another and bless the heart of God. So this week, let’s attempt to be managers of the gifts that God had given us, intangible and tangible alike. How can you use your job, your money and your body to bless God by ministering to others? If you’re unsure of what your spiritual gifts are, I challenge you to go to this website and thoughtfully complete the 125 questions: http://buildingchurch.net/g2s.htm