James Duff December 4th 2016 ~ Spiritual fitness

This week I joined a group of men, some from East Fremantle Baptist and some from St Philips Cottesloe, for their weekly exercise routine.  It is a game called ‘ultimate frisbee’.  The rules are pretty basic.  Two teams play over a 100-metre long by 50-metre wide rectangle, the goal being to make it to your designated end of the field without the opposition touching the frisbee or the frisbee touching the ground.  You throw the frisbee to your team member who, when they catch it, can no longer run.  Once you have made it to the end of the 100-metre rectangle you receive a point.  Depending on how much you want to run, it can be a brutal game; it can be non-stop sprinting from end to end.  Some of the men involved in the game I played were truly skillful and fit.  St Philippians Carl Huston and Meirion Powell ran rings around me.  These men are seriously skilled.  I really enjoyed it and I am looking forward to going at it again next Wednesday morning.As I sit here and write this musing the day after my ultimate frisbee experience, my right hamstring continues to cramp and my quads are stiff and sore.  My body is showing me clearly that I am not physically fit.  It is important that I gain some physical fitness even though it hurts and I have to get up at 5:45am to join in with these frisbee freaks!  This has got me thinking: as Christians we are called to be spiritually fit.We are starting a series on 2 Timothy this Sunday.  The themes of perseverance in godliness and God’s truth through persecution prevail throughout.  Paul writes to his younger mentee Timothy saying, “Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus . . .  if anyone competes as an athlete they do not receive the victor’s crown unless they compete according to the rules.”  The Lord Jesus tells parables of the kingdom of God being the most valuable thing we must strive in and worth giving up everything to attain.  My point is that physical fitness is important but spiritual fitness is of first importance.  Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4:  “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.”The gospel of Jesus has both an individual and a corporate aspect.  Individually, by taking on our sins on the cross, Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection has reconciled to God all who repent and believe.  Corporately, there will be a final renewal of this world, where all sin and brokenness in creation will no longer exist and all of God’s people will live in perfect harmony with each other and under Jesus as Lord.I’m off to stretch my hammies; I encourage you to stretch spiritually.  So get in a Bible study, join a Missional Community, serve on Sunday, get in a prayer group.  I urge you, brothers and sisters, to just keep spiritually exercising and remember that we do this because when we were still sinners Christ died for us (Rom. 5:8).BlessingsJames