Money Can’t Buy Me Fitness

We invited our church over for an open house a few weeks ago. I really hate to admit to this - especially in writing. It’s bound to be used against me at my inevitable sanity hearing. But I burned more calories on my exercise machine while getting ready for that open house than I have since I bought it. Here’s the goofy part. I burned all those calories by PUSHING the monstrous thing into the storage area. How embarrassing.

Doesn’t it seem like just owning the machine should make me fit? After all, I invested a big hunk of money in it. I’m sure I thought I’d see the muscle multiplying and the fat melting away even as I wrote out the check.

I wonder if there are people who have the same kind of warped view when it comes to God’s Word? Could they possibly think that by finding the biggest, fattest, most expensive Bible, they automatically become spiritual? Or maybe they think that while writing that tithe check they suddenly have a special understanding of the will of God.

But Ephesians 6:17 tells us to “take” the Word of God. Not just buy it. Not set it on a shelf for some kind of spiritual protection. We’re not to just glance at a few pages now and then. No, we’re to “take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” TAKE it. We’re to wield it. How insane would we consider a soldier who strapped on the heaviest, shiniest sword, then went into battle trying to bop people with its sheath? He’d be more destined for a sanity hearing than even me.

Let’s use God’s Word, let it become a part of what we do and even who we are. That’s a big part of what being filled with the Holy Spirit and walking in Him is all about. That’s when we’re able to do what we were designed to do.

And just so you know, I’ll be dragging my exercise machine back out of storage this week. I guess I’ll try a little harder to use it to do what it was designed to do, too. Hey, do you think that hauling the thing back out might earn me enough aerobic points to get me through ‘til summer?

Rhonda Rhea is a radio personality and a conference speaker for events all over the country. She is the author of Amusing Grace, a fun book for moms, Turkey Soup for the Soul—Tastes Just Like Chicken, a “chick” book loaded with laughs, and Who Put the Cat in the Fridge, a fun and fruitful family book. Watch for I’m Dreaming of Some White Chocolate in 2006. Rhonda is a mother of five. Her husband, Richie Rhea, is pastor of First Baptist Church of Troy, Missouri. Find out more at www.RhondaRhea.net.