Diet and Exercise

Healthy Church consideration #2:

"Optimum health is part (proper) consumption

and part (proper) exertion."

Ah, if only repetition was a guarantee of true learning! How many times have you and I been told that the key to being truly healthy is to have a good diet and to regularly exercise? We all know that that's true, don't we? It doesn't take a health expert to know that what we put into our bodies affects how our bodies operate and that what we do (or don't do) with our bodies affects them as well. It's a rather duh! kind of concept, right?

Well, knowledge is not the same as wisdom, I'm afraid. I still don't eat the number of fruits and vegetables that my body requires to be optimally healthy, nor do I exercise as much as I ought. I've got really good reasons why I don't, but the fact remains that I don't. So then, I am not optimally healthy. I am reasonably healthy and comparably healthy (you know, if you compare me to that less healthy guy over there), but I'm not optimally healthy. Who's got the time, money and will power for all of that healthy eating and consistent and disciplined exercise anyway?

Churches, bodies of Christ, become optimally healthy the same way as our physical bodies do. If we consume the best of God's Word truthfully and clearly communicated, and if we exercise our gifts in humble and loving service to one another and the world, then we'll be healthy. It's no magic formula, it's just how things work. Some members of the church are being fed really well, but aren't exercising, and so they cannot be healthy. Some members are exercising but not eating very well, and so they cannot be healthy. Some members are eating well and exercising and they are growing stronger and healthier every day!

You know what happens when you don't eat enough good stuff and you try to exercise intensely and frequently? You run out of energy! You can go for awhile, but your body can't maintain its drive and vitality. How true this is in our life with Christ. Some of us try to do, do, do and serve, serve, serve without being thoughtful and purposeful about our truth-intake, our personal worship, and our reliance on the Holy Spirit within us. Burnout and/or discouragement are bound to come this way. Without a constantly refreshed vision and joy, doing things for God or the church can be spiritually destructive and even deadly.

Of course, you also know what happens when we eat plenty and don't exercise, too. Taking in energy without expending it leads to weight gain and its related problems. We become weak and unable to perform even the most basic tasks of life without great strain and effort. Aren't there some Christians who walk through life with Jesus that way? The simplest things of discipleship can seem so hard and burdensome because they've ingested but haven't expended the life-giving energy of God's Word and Spirit.

As a church, we need to be committed to uncompromising and bold truth-telling as well as humble and sacrificial truth-doing. We remember that "faith without works is dead" (James 2:26) and that we are not to "love with words or tongue, but with actions and in truth" (1 John 3:18). Take in the true Word and then live out the true Word: this is the one reliable way to become optimally healthy as individual disciples and as a church family. Amen!