Love the Lord with All Your Strength
Train to the point of failure …
Training to the point of failure is a common principle you will come across with exercise programs and weight training.
This concept instructs us to repeat a particular exercise to the point of momentary failure - the point when the final movement seems impossible to complete and you have one rep left in you … possibly.
You press through.
You have gone as far as your body will take you.
You catch your breath.
You come to a realization: Every rep before the point of failure was worth it, and you’re glad you didn’t take any shortcuts.
It's at this moment, after the weights have been put down, that your body continues to burn off more calories than it did during the workout. Whether you’re developing strength, gaining muscle mass, or increasing stamina there is great benefit in properly managing your points of failure in your workouts.
“For the training of the body has limited benefit, but godliness is beneficial in every way, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”
Every single one of us has a membership to the gymnasium of life, where we gladly spend our money, routinely meet up with like-minded people, and encourage each other to get the most out of our workout. We condition ourselves to invest energy and resources toward health, family, career, leisure, hobbies, life management, productivity, passions, etc. We get caught up in the hamster wheel of simply doing more and spreading ourselves thin in every direction chasing after every fancy.
Beware of Neglecting What Matters More.
These things may not seem necessarily "bad" in themselves.
But I have a concern …
Somehow along the way, these fleeting pursuits have become primary. Rather than being godly and wise stewards of such things, we make them our idols, to which we must prostrate ourselves in submissive worship.
Tim Keller warns in his book Counterfeit Gods, anything can become an idol ... and it has. In the midst of living a life that burns the candle on both ends and in the middle, it's evident we have come to serve only what has become "counterfeit gods".
We train to the point of failure in these endeavors of life frequently, only to exhaust ourselves with nothing to show for it. Vanity of vanities, vanity of vanities, all is vanity (Ecclesiastes 1:2).
Where do you expend most of your energy? Do you squander your efforts attempting to fill broken vessels that are unable to hold the life that only Jesus offers?
I'm afraid many are neglecting a critical aspect of their lives: Godliness.
Godliness is underrated.
Godliness is cheated.
Godliness is overlooked.
Godliness is abandoned.
But it's godliness that lays hold of divine and eternal promises in this life and the life to come.
Invest in Your Spiritual Health. Pursue Godliness.
For the glory of the Father, with the Cross of Christ as the foundation, and with the power of the Holy Spirit, what does the gymnasium of true spirituality look like? Where does it begin?
The true spiritual life begins and ends with expending your energy toward God in Jesus as your ultimate treasure, your primary focus, and your highest priority.
It is clear from Scripture and experience that there is some value and limited benefit with investing in these areas of life. It is clearer that we are not to pursue such matters at the expense of godliness, which is beneficial in every way.
“Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.”
Love the Lord with All Your Strength.
To the highest degree, love God with all your strength ... literally, love God with all of your “very” or “ so greatly”. I have always found this wording very interesting. Your energy or exerted force ought to reach the upper range of the scale, the highest point on a scale of extent, even to a completive degree. Another way to remember this is to “love God utterly.”
Love the Lord as far as your heart, mind, and soul will take you.
Be Thoughtful. Be Intentional.
Strive to express affectionate, intimate, reasonable, logical, total love toward God first and foremost. Here are a few simple suggestions to get the ball rolling:
Block out appointments with God on your calendars before setting other appointments;
Continually and consistently set aside times throughout the day to commune with Him in prayer;
Meditating on His Word until something happens, until something in your life changes, and don’t cut this time short by moving on before something changes;
Seek Biblically wise counsel and accountability, and cease from trying to live the Christian life as the lone ranger; and
Begin with a few spiritual disciplines that have proven effective over the centuries for faithful saints of old.
In Christ, pour forth all of your energy in living for the glory of God through the Gospel, binding yourself to His grace and commandments. Rest in His provision and sustaining power as He "works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13).
At the point of failure, you'll come to realize that each step was worth it, and you'll continually see your faith and intimacy with Christ grow - grace upon grace beyond what you could have imagined. It may seem hard at various times, but you will never regret being trained in the gymnasium of the soul and godliness.
Linus Nguyen is the founder of Of The Way Ministries and serves as lead pastor of Emmanuel Bible Fellowship (Houston, Texas). He has taught in, developed curriculum for, and written on the subjects of Biblical Studies, Theology, Discipleship, Spiritual Formation, Philosophy of Religion, Missions, Humanities, Rhetoric, and Communications at Secondary, Undergraduate, and Postgraduate levels. // Follow him on Podcast, YouTube, Pinterest, and Facebook.