“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul,
and with all your might.”
Deuteronomy 6:5
Built for Worship
How do we express our love to the Lord? In other words, how do we worship him?
The admonitions from both the Old and New Testament are very clear – we are to worship/love the Lord with everything in us. (Exodus 20:3, Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30)
The Basics of Fitness
In order to accomplish this command, we need to have energy and stamina throughout our lives. Maintaining a level of fitness through all four seasons of life can be a challenge, but it is not rocket-science. We need to engage in some type of moderate intensity physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day, 4 to 5 days a week. We also need to balance our caloric intake and output by fueling our bodies with a variety of food choices in moderation. We have heard all of that before...and it is true!
A Warning of Fitness
Although physical fitness and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is a key component to MD5 and will likely add years to the seasons of our lives, we need to be careful about how much attention we give to the “worship” of our own fitness goals and our own body.
Establishing and maintaining a regular fitness regimen is important, but we need to take caution about how much the desire to meet our fitness goals can squeeze out time needed for other areas of our life.
One definition of worship states: extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem.
Fitness goals and the desire to have a certain physique can very easily become an object of worship. Again, nothing wrong with physical fitness...just make sure it is balanced with other important areas of your life.
The Best Worship
God commands and desires that we love and serve him with all our might. Some men will have much more measurable “might” than others. Let’s just make sure we channel all our might to the most worthy object of worship.
Jeff Riddle
MD5 Facilitator
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