For bodily exercise profits little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. I have heard a lot of ministers quoting this scripture and also criticizing the world for putting too much attention on their physical body. You see, what puzzles me is when Christians call themselves spiritual, supposedly they know their scriptures, but are far from the results of the scriptures.
I truly believe that spiritual benefits can be seen outwardly. If you say that only the spirit benefits, you are deceiving yourself. Matter fact, as a person begins to grow spiritually it will effect every aspect of their life. I can go through all of the parts of our life, I would have to write an article for each one of them. Now, I want to focus on physical exercise as it relates to spiritual exercise, what we call godliness.
To my understanding, as a person grows spiritually that person grows in knowledge, but if that person does not apply that knowledge, it is an indication that the person have not learned anything. So practical application can be said that the person understood the knowledge to a certain extent. It is not necessarily that the person will do the things right the first time because the physical body needs to get adjusted to the new knowledge. That is when practicing comes to hand.
Just think of a person learning how to ride a bicycle for the first time. Instructions will be giving of what to do and not to do, but the person will eventually learn through trial and error, if he or she does not give up.
So now, why people think that when they try to loose weight the first time, if they don’t succeed, it must be a problem with their physical body. I have heard it all! My friend blames it on her thyroid. She is so proud to say like a lot of people do,” I have a thyroid problem”.
I recently had a talk with a friend concerning this. She told me that her doctor told her that, sometime when someone can’t loose weight, it could be genetic. That sounds all good, but to me it means that your body has a memory and it is used to certain foods; when you try to loose weight, you have a craving that demand for those foods then you give in to those craving, it is called carb and sugar. Stop listening to your doctor about everything and start learning for yourself and start listening to your own body.
With all these said, exercise is not all about physical, but also putting to practice spiritual knowledge that you have acquired. In another word exercise your knowledge. The scriptures say “if you know to do good, you don’t do it, it sin unto you.”
We all have seen people that are very successful, they are good with what they do, and have done great things with it. We always credit their genius and their intelligence, because we tend disregard their true secret that it’s all about persistence, diligence, and a lot of practice.
