Exercise

<<work out, keep fit>>

Regular physical exercise is essential for living a healthy life to keep excess weight off, increase blood circulation that aids the elimination of waste material from the body, reduce fatigue and prevent many ailments. Living an active lifestyle makes one energetic,

Do I exercise or just think about it?

youthful and fun to be around as vitality and endurance are increased while tension is reduced. Discipline is needed to maintain an effective program, yet have a balanced approach to fitness, so it doesn’t become an idol.

Without good health, it is impossible to achieve all the Lord has for you, or enjoy life fully. Exercise doesn’t need to be costly or elaborate to be beneficial – doing it regularly is the key, with the whole body being exercised, not just exclusive areas. Be it natural muscle, skills or spiritual ability unless we use it, we lose it! We are to be good stewards of our bodies – the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19).

Physical body exercises are largely for our own personal advantage, developing and using our worldly marketplace skills benefits society while spiritual exercises profit the Kingdom of God. By addressing each of these interconnected areas, we will become whole, balanced, growing believers.

Spiritual exercise

Bodily exercise is beneficial, being spiritually fit is more so (1 Tim 4:8). Godly exercises or spiritual disciplines that develop us include self-control (denying the flesh and obeying the Spirit), regular prayer, Bible reading and study, fellowship with other believers, living with a tender clear conscience before God and others, fasting, tithing and

doing good works by being other focused. We should see God in all aspects of our lives enabling us to live with purpose and make our lives count for His Kingdom as we face reality with Jesus.

We need to exercise our spirit to seek after and contact the Lord in the Word of God and through the Holy Spirit's enabling live by the new man, turning from our natural mind to our spiritual dimension of who we are in Christ. We connect and encounter the Lord in our spirit as we worship Him, read the Bible, and set our mind on the Spirit (Rom 8:5; Col 3:2).

We need to intentionally put off the old man and put on the new man, and do all things by this new man nature. Even though we are believers and lovers of Christ, we still do not live consistently in and by the new man. The old way

Connect with the Lord and live in the Spirit

of life has been so deeply engrained that it is a challenge to grasp we are new creatures (2 Cor 5:17). We have a choice to be renewed in the spirit of our mind (Rom 12:2). The states the only solution for the old life is death to its carnal, sinful nature, so do not attempt to improve the old man (Mt 16:24; Rom 6:6, 8:13; Col 3:5; Gal 2:20). May the Bible become a book of life, a life-giving and life-dispensing book of spiritual nourishment and spiritual enlightenment enabling the tearing down of our self, the breaking of our natural man and the supply of our new man with the Spirit. We need to learn to exercise our spirit to contact the Lord in His Word throughout the day by means of our new man and live in the Spirit to effect our world.