God’s Gym

Train yourself in godliness. —1 Timothy 4:7

I was a straight-A student most of the way through school, but the one class I couldn’t stand was gym. Yet in 1 Timothy, Paul tells us that we need to go to God’s gym, so to speak, if we want to be godly. We need to exercise and practice discipline in our spiritual lives.

That means we’re going to sweat. We’re going to have to endure and press through the pain—but not just one time. We go back again and again to build up our endurance and spiritual muscles.

We want godliness to just happen. We want to go to a conference, read a book, or hear a message and have some sort of mystical experience. We don’t want to do the hard work to get the end result. That’s why so many of us stay spiritually flabby. We don’t develop spiritual muscles because godliness requires constant diligence and serious, purposeful, continual training.

Sometimes we won’t feel like we’re making progress, but we need to keep training, knowing that ultimately we will see the fruit and reap the benefits.