.

This week as I am driving to the gym I see this fifty something year old guy walking out and something he was doing caught my attention. First of all he looked like he was in really good shape for a guy his age. He looked fit and trim, a picture of what we should look like when we really take care of ourselves.

As I glanced his way I saw something in his hand and I had to do a double take to make sure I was seeing things correctly. I looked again and sure enough there in his hand not carrying his work out bag was a cigarette. It just really caught me off guard; it was the last thing I expected to see.

The last thing I expected to see in a guy’s hand coming out of a workout gym was a cigarette. Having just spent time working on his health he comes out doing one of the worst things someone could do for their health. The contradiction was striking.

I wonder if God does the same double take when we come out of church. He sees us come out of a place where we are doing the very thing He created us for, worship. Yet we head off into the world and do some of the worst things we could ever do for our spiritual life. I am sure the contradiction is striking for Him.

We have become a world that is full of spiritual exercise. We have our church, then we head off to our separate prayer meetings. We read untold Christian books and the airwaves both television and radio are packed full of great preachers and teachers. We feed the poor and give like no bodies business to different mission activities all over the world.

All of this is good, just like going to the gym and working out for an hour. But if you follow the good by something destructive then you have really accomplished nothing. If you walk out of the gym with a cigarette then you have just wasted your time wouldn’t you agree?

If you walk out of church with malice, hate, gossip and lust in your heart then you have just wasted your time wouldn’t you agree? Yet we do it all the time. We go through the exercise, we feel good and then we walk out into the world with the same bad habit or sin that we walked into the church with.

When we came to Christ we were meant to be transformed. Take a good look at yourself and ask your self this question. If God saw me outside of church would the actions of my heart make Him do a double take and wonder why I ever went in the first place?

This I know physical exercise without a change in what you eat and how you live, transforms little concerning your health. Likewise spiritual exercise without a transforming of the inner soul, changes little concerning your relationship with God.

Scripture: Psalms 119:1-3, “Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the Lord. Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart. They do nothing wrong; they walk in his ways.”

Prayer: Dear Lord, lead us to avoid the duplicity of life that creates a confusing message to those that surround us. Have us to seek your ways with all of our heart. Help us not only to do spiritual exercise for the sake of doing but lead us to proper actions with proper motives. We ask these things in Christ Name, Amen.