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With my schedule I have to be a little creative to make time to exercise. I have had a membership at a local gym for twenty years and it is both inexpensive and convenient. One of the gyms is near where I work so I can take my lunch hour work out and be back within an hour. It works out great.

There are some days where I just want to get away from the office but really do not want to exercise. Then there are times when I plan on running after work so working out at lunch is not that big a deal. But I still want to get away from the office so I make my way to the gym.

On those days I normally just put on my swimsuit and go sit in the wet sauna. Oh my I love that place, it’s hot and steamy and when I sit in there all my troubles just melt away. I get a good sweat going and never have to lift a finger. Then I can make my way to the pool and cool off before heading back to the Dallas heat. I get lots of sweating going on and feel better without exercising one bit. I call this my executive workout.

As much as I enjoy my executive workouts, they do little good. Other than sweating out some water and relaxing nothing is being done to help my body be in better shape. My heart does not get the exercise it needs, my muscles are not toned in any way and really nothing is getting firmed up at all. The executive workout is in reality not a workout at all.

In today’s church society I believe there are a lot of people who are having executive worship. Here is how executive worship works and by the way I believe there is an epidemic of it these days. We go to church and sit in our pews; we listen to wonderful music, are blessed by good prayers, and then are challenged by a good sermon. We sit there and work up a good spiritual sweat.

Then the problem arises. We walk out of the church and put nothing into practice we have heard. We do not pray ourselves others have done it for us, we do not sing anything to the Lord, others have done it for us, we do not open up the Bible, others have done it for us and then we practice nothing of which the pastor challenged us with. We have worked up a good sweat but our heart hasn’t started beating fast for God.

Sunday we sit in the sauna of worship soaking in all the good

stuff but on Monday through Saturday our life’s never get the exercise they need to practice the faith and worship in God we declare on Sunday. In the end we find ourselves out of shape spiritually because we depended on others to do our work.

Sitting in church is a good thing it is what we should be doing. Like sitting in the wet sauna for me it is nice and relaxing, but also like my executive workout it does my body little good. For me to make progress I must exercise, get up off the couch and move my body it is as simple as that.

Exercise in a nutshell is getting the heart pumping a little faster for a period of time, thus making your heart muscle stronger. Spiritual exercise is the same. It is making your heart beat faster as you serve, study and deal with the things of God.

In order to have real faith and real worship you have to get your heart beating for God, you can’t do that sitting down. So how is your worship is it executive or is it executing?

Scripture: James 2:14-18, “What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

Prayer: Dear Lord, help us to not only hear the word but be doers of it as well. We ask these things in Christ name, Amen.