I recently was convicted that I had not been a good steward of the “temple” that God has given me. I had been eating in an unhealthy manner and not exercising – thus neglecting to care for the physical gift of my body that God has given me to carry out His purposes. Such neglect can be sinful (or reveal sin in my heart) and practically, will have an effect on my physical ability to obey the Lord in carrying out the roles He has called me to.
So, in response to new-found conviction, I changed the way I eat and bought a used piece of exercise equipment. It looks good in the garage too. But now, I must begin the process of making intentional changes to my schedule and start using the equipment if I want to benefit from it. As it turns out, conviction is a good thing but apparently, I have to put what I have to work if I want to see actual results.
Often we can be poor stewards of the minds that the Lord has given us too. This neglect not only reveals potential areas of sin, but it will also have a definite effect on our ability to live the Christian life and carry out our Biblical roles...
Aside from daily intake of the Bible, prayer, worship and sound teaching, I cannot recommend more highly the discipline of reading great books. In doing so though, I must first ask if you are reading and meditating on God’s Word daily, with the specific goal of hearing from God and applying His Word to your life. If you are not working out in this area, I’d encourage you to stop reading this post and go read your Bible instead – you’ll get way more out of it.
If, however, you have begun to develop your practice of daily Bible intake and application, I would encourage you to purchase some additional exercise equipment for your mind and soul. Get good books. You don’t have to look for the “uber-bender-lifter-3000” though; I’d encourage you to start with the basics. Start with one good book and when you’ve read it and sought to apply it to your life, move on to another and then go and re-read them.
In doing so, it is important that you begin with books that help expound the timeless truths that the Bible contains and stay with books that stay close to the Bible. And then, it is critical that you don’t just get books – read them. After all, they may look good on your shelf but they won’t do any good if you don’t put them to work practically.
In my next post, I’ll make some specific recommendations for your reading…
