Lifting Weights With Jesus

         Growing spiritual muscle hurts.  Not many of us are willing to go to the gym with Jesus and lift the spiritual weights in which God invites us to.  Working out and lifting weights causes our muscles to first break down.  The pain and soreness we feel afterwards are our muscles breaking down and then growing new tissue.  If we don't feel soreness after a workout, we then question if we needed to work a little harder.  Growing spiritual muscle is much like the same.
          God invites us to lift spiritual weights for our health, our wholeness, our well-being.  But it hurts.  There is pain, soreness, sometimes resistance, sweat, and tears.  God asks that we push on to finish the workout.  In America not many desire to go to the gym with Jesus.  Churches and many pastors rather invite us to sit with Jesus in the sun on the deck and sip a cold beverage.  Its all pleasantries, comfort, and assurance but there is more; God wants us to discover more in Him.  God wants us to workout with Him.
          Loving God and learning of God's character both past and present should feel like a workout! If you aren't occasionally wrestling with God and breaking down spiritual muscle, you must be going too light.  Studying theology looks a lot like daily weight lifting with Christ.  I've watched friends and peers get ripped apart by studying it and having to face the tough questions and the unfathomable in God.  I, myself, have been gutted by it.  I am observing my peers in Seminary "go to the gym" and come back rugged and beat up.  I, too, am building spiritual muscle and it hurts.  The more we learn the less we feel we know and that is ok.
          We must first get torn down to be built back up. God invites us to the gym for consistent building of our minds, hearts, and souls.  The trick is to have faith that every time our muscle gets torn down that God is going to build it back up.  I know and trust that when I go to the gym and workout that I am going to be sore and also get toned. It never ceases to happen and so it is with God.  We are invited to lift weights with Jesus but we have to drive ourselves to the gym and be willing to be torn down in order that we may be built back up.