Over the course of posting on this blog, I will be featuring a "Fitspo" section. It will be a series of posts that are intended to help you stay motivated to be healthy. Sometimes they will be quotes, pictures, articles, and Bible verses, but I wanted to start the section off with what I feel is the most important reason to have consistency in our workout lives.
We all tend to lose inspiration to maintain a "fittie" lifestyle every now and then. When you get to those times, what do you look to for inspiration? A lot of people follow Twitter and Instagram feeds of fellow "fitfamily" members who post pictures of themselves killing it at the gym and seeing results. Others watch shows like "The Biggest Loser" so they can be reminded of what they don't want to become. These things are great to get an immediate spike in enthusiasm, but it will taper off quickly. What if we could find a way to get AND STAY motivated? We can!
"Don't you know that all the runners in the stadium run, but only one gets the prize? So run to win. Everyone who competes practices self-discipline in everything. The runners do this to get a crown of leaves that will shrivel up and die, but we do it to receive a crown that will never die. So this is how I run - not with a clear goal in sight. I fight like a boxer in the ring, not like someone who is shadow boxing. Rather, I am landing punches on my own body and subduing it like a slave. I do this so that I myself won't be disqualified after preaching to others."- 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
When we look at exercise in the light of our call as Christians on this earth, it makes sense that it should be a practice that EVERYONE is employing. Earlier in the chapter, Paul discusses not letting anything to get in the way of the gospel of Christ.
There are plenty of ways that not exercising will get in the way of the gospel going forth. People who exercise consistently and take care of their bodies show that they are the type of "self-disciplined" that Paul is talking about. When we give our lives over to Christ and he dwells in us, our bodies have become a temple to host His Spirit (1 Corinthians, Chapter 6). We need to LIVE OUT what we know in our minds about our relationship with Christ. When we choose to take the route to beat our bodies into submission and resist the temptation of sweets, watching TV instead of getting your workout time in, and taking the lazy way out, that is how we can glorify God.
Setting a "goal weight" (I too am guilty of this) does the spiritual aspect of exercise such a grave injustice. We are not to exercise with a goal weight in mind, we are to do it in order to be the best we can be as a temple of Christ. Yes, it is good to be FIT so we can remain in good health to serve the Lord, but fit does not necessarily mean skinny. It means being in good shape and in good health and that is going to look vastly different for everyone. It also means staying spiritually fit by staying in the Word, and having a surrounding of other Christians that are going to be your "iron sharpening iron".
So here is where we find our eternal inspiration, friends. Stay fit and be consistent in order to keep your body in shape as a show of the Lord manifesting self-discipline in you; not to be the "best looking" or so that you can get the best time at a triathlon.
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