TODAY IS…

an excellent day to pump a little “Spiritual Iron.”

“He remembered us in our time of weakness. His faithful love endures forever.”  Psalm 136:23 NLT

Most of us are familiar with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was a Governor of California after having been a major star in action movies. His formidable physique made him difficult to beat. Many of us are also aware that before Arnold became a movie star, he was known around the world as a major body building champion. He has an incredible build composed of muscles, many of which are in places most of us don’t even know we have places.

Of course, Arnold was not born that way.

His development took place over time as the result of a lot of hard work “pumping iron.” Arnold lifted weights for hours every day to exercise his different muscles and his hard work paid off with three phenomenal careers as bodybuilder, movie star, and governor.

Our faith is like those muscles Arnold worked to develop.

His muscles started out weak, as does our faith.

We must exercise our faith by pumping some “spiritual iron” to build it up so that our spiritual “physique” is as formidable as Arnold’s body. It is important that we take note of the fact that the process is on-going and takes a lifetime. We don’t work on it for a little while, build it up, and then forget about it.

If Arnold did not continue to exercise his muscles, they would atrophy – they would get smaller and he would grow weaker.

The same principle applies to our faith. We must constantly exercise it to ensure that it remains as strong as possible.

The Israelites were always forgetting their “exercise program,” whereupon their faith would weaken. Even though they had the Law of Moses to guide them, “The Law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature.” (Romans 8:3a NLT).

Our faith can save us, and it is incumbent upon us to do all that we can so that we are able to be like the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with rare perfume.

“And He said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’” (Luke 7:50 NASB).

Our faith can save us as well, but it requires regular exercise in order to be ready for anything that might require it. The only way to exercise our faith is to rely upon God for everything, to worship Him, pray to Him, and search the Bible daily, for by reading the Word of God we are “pumping Spiritual Iron.”

We may never be known the world over as Arnold is, but we will be known to God, and that is recognition of inestimable worth.

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Taken from “TODAY IS….A Gift From God”, (C) 2013 Tony Casson