Get Up With God
highly caffeinated daily bible doses to help start your morning off right

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
(Philippians 2:12)

Train yourself to be godly.
For physical training is of some value,
but godliness has value for all things,
holding promise for both the present life,
and the life to come.
(1 Timothy 4:7-8)

Time for a real New Year’s resolution.

I hate to admit it, but I’m spiritually flabby. If my spirit could run, it probably wouldn’t make it the spiritual equivalent of ten yards without gasping for air, sweating profusely and then collapsing into a heap.

A pastor friend of mine once gave me a book with the somewhat scary title of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. After praying through it a couple of times, I came up with my own spiritual workout plan to help me run the Big Race without suffering a massive spiritual coronary. It’s pretty simple:

• LOVE: God and others
• PRAY: Continually
• READ: The Bible
• FAST: From dumb stuff
• TELL: Everyone the good news
• REPEAT: All of the above

I humbly suggest you consider working out a similar plan with God’s help. Our very own spiritual fitness counselor — The Holy Spirit — is ready 24/7 to help us all stick to His training plan. Don’t try to run the race alone.

We’ll discuss each element of the above plan beginning next week. In the meantime . . .

WORK IT OUT!

For the next several Saturdays, we’ll be counting down the top ten Bible verses of all time, based on an exhaustive study conducted by research scientists with very large brains who determined how often each verse appears in print.

Here’s Verse #9.  Read it.  Think about it.  Memorize it.  Chew on it.  Marinate in it.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.  2 Timothy 3:16

READ THE BIBLE. ALL OF IT.  START NOW.

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.  Philippians 2:12

Train yourself to be godly.  For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.  1 Timothy 4:7-8

Time for a New Year’s resolution.

I’m spiritually flabby.  If my spirit could run, it probably wouldn’t make it the spiritual equivalent of 5 yards without gasping for air, sweating profusely and then collapsing into a heap.

The other day, I pulled a little-used book off my bookshelf with the somewhat scary title of Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life.  After flipping through it, I came up with a simple spiritual workout plan that hopefully will help me run the Big Race without suffering a spiritual coronary.  It’s really pretty simple:

• BIBLE:  Start and end each day reading it.
• PRAY:  Continually.
• SERVE:  Others before me.  Spend $ and time wisely.
• FAST:  From dumb stuff.
• TELL:  Others about God.
• REPEAT:  All of the above.

I’ve been following this plan (more or less) for a couple of weeks and it actually seems to be helping.  I could probably make it the equivalent of 10 spiritual yards now without collapsing.

WORK IT OUT!

Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.  Matthew 6:33

What do you “seek first”?

Me, I’m a nincompoop.  From the moment I wake to the moment I sleep I do one nincompoopish thing after another.  If you followed me around and tried to figure out what I seek each day, the list would look something like this:

1. Fun
2. Food
3. More fun
4. More food
5. Repeat

One problem with being a nincompoop is that sometimes you do things that make no sense.  Like go to church.  One Sunday, I was sitting there “listening” to the sermon.  My thoughts were going something like this:  football . . . food . . . football . . . food . . . football . . . food . . . what time is it? . . . man, we’ve still got 12 minutes to go . . . football . . . food . . . football . . . food . . . football . . . food . . . football . . . food . . . what time is it? . . . man, we’ve still got 11 minutes to go . . .

Without warning, my thoughts suddenly turned to what the preacher was saying.  This may not be an exact quote, but he said something like:  “Are you tired of being a nincompoop?  Are you sick of doing nincompoopish things?  Do you want to have your life contain less nincompoopery?”

He concluded by saying something like:  “When you get up tomorrow, seek God first and see what happens.”

The next morning I decided to give it a try.  Instead of seeking the snooze button or coffee maker first, I read a few words in the Bible, prayed a little and then waited to see what would happen.  I tried it again the next day and the next and the next and most every day since then.

It’s been slow, gradual and almost imperceptible at times, but looking back on my life since that first day, I can see a definite decline in my overall nincompoopity.  The equation is simple:

MORE GOD = LESS NINCOMPOOPISHNESS

I’ll close this first ramble with a few small words that just might change your life.  They changed mine.

GET UP WITH GOD