Love: The Function of Spiritual Exercise

What is the purpose of exercise? You may have asked yourself that same question as you set out on a run for the first time after a long break in a sarcastic or defeated mindset. I mean it in a semi-serious, non-rhetorical way for our conversation. What do people hope to achieve by going to the gym or watching their diet? 

Anyone who has tried to care for themselves physically knows it can be challenging. Some habits need to be broken while others are created simultaneously. It can be a daunting task.

I think the purpose of physical fitness comes down to the ability to live well and not have our physical health be a limiting factor in what we can do. We must develop a certain degree of strength and endurance to accomplish this. Regardless of our specific fitness or exercise goals, at the root of it all is a desire to live better and move freely.

There isn’t a specific body weight that we can define as healthy, but carrying too much weight can limit our enjoyment or ability not just in the gym but to play with our grandkids, travel, serve our neighbors, or go on a hike.

Being underweight has the same limitations. One of the most sought-after appearances by many men is that of Brad Pitt in the movie Fight Club. Ironically, despite looking athletic and playing a fighter, he was so poorly conditioned that he couldn’t fight for a full minute without needing a break. Weight is just one indicator of many that can help us evaluate our health. 

It is important to recognize that while people’s motivations vary, most people have the same goals for their physical fitness: better health, a longer life expectancy, independence, and probably looking a bit better. Training needs to serve these purposes and lead toward these results. The actual program or exercises done are not the end goal; they contribute to something more important. 

Spiritual disciplines operate the same way. The ultimate goal is laid out for us by Jesus in Matthew 22. When asked what the most important commandment was, Jesus responded by saying, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Jesus not only answers the Pharisee’s question, but he lays out the roadmap for our spiritual journey. The goal for anyone wanting to follow Jesus is to love God as best we can and to love our neighbor the same way we love ourselves. 

The goal is to love God and love our neighbor. This objective covers everything spiritually and in other areas of our lives. 

Loving God is not merely affection for God but recognition of who He is. In light of this, our lives reflect his authority, and we submit to his leadership and guidance. Disciplines and habits serve to reorient our hearts and minds in that direction. The benefit of studying scripture, i.e., is not in acquiring knowledge by itself but in the ability of God’s Word to remind us of what we can so easily be forgotten and challenge our assumptions of how life works best. Think of how many messages you receive daily telling you how to live or what you deserve. We are told how to spend our time and money, what kind of future we should pursue, and what we should value. Meditating on scripture is the only way to gain clarity in a noisy world, clamoring for our attention and, in some cases, making pretty convincing arguments.

Genuinely loving our neighbors goes far beyond cutting their grass or pulling up their trash cans. These actions are friendly, but their true power occurs when done in faith and consequently reshape our hearts. As we care for the people around us, we are reminded of two key ideas God wants to cement in our souls:

1. They are made in God’s image and deserve the same love, mercy, kindness, and justice we would want for ourselves and our loved ones. 

2. As imperfect as they may be, we are equally capable of being annoying, needy, rude, or falling short in every way we perceive them to be at that moment. 

In a strange sense, loving those around us safeguards us from pride and an elevated sense of self-worth. Jesus commanded his disciples to wash each other’s feet, to serve one another. He knew that this was the best method to their recent arguments about who was the greatest. 

Loving our neighbor is a critical ingredient in the antivenom against the poison of pride. We are neither more important nor beneath anyone else. Instead, we play a role in bringing God’s Kingdom into reality and creating a community of faith that reflects his love for the world around us. The best way to demonstrate faith is through the authentic, practical actions of love to everyone in our path. 

Interestingly enough, doing this causes our hearts to be turned towards God. We love him more as a result of loving our neighbor. Truly loving someone else as ourselves is difficult. It requires sacrifice and discomfort, much like exercise. We can not choose to love others only when it is convenient; if we do so, it is something less than love. A strong affection perhaps, but our actions, or inaction, reveal that we still love ourselves more than the other person. 

God has wisely interwoven the two commands into one expression of love. Loving God with all we have and all we are frees us from the sin and entanglements of the world we live in. Our eyes are opened to a new perspective, an eternal outlook that separates what is urgent from what is essential. 

Richard Foster identified a dozen habits or disciplines in his classic book, The Celebration of Discipline. He divides them into three categories, internal, external, and corporate. Practicing these 12 disciplines has immense benefits, and any follower of Jesus benefits from doing so. According to Jesus in Matthew 22, the actual test is how these disciplines lead us to love God and one another in a more profound, more active way. 

Worship

Worship is a natural human expression. We all spend our lives worshiping; the only question is where we devote our energy. Nearly every act of our lives is an expression of worship. Everything we do is driven by allegiance or belief that we hold and value as important. 

Likewise, it is easy to walk into a church building, attend a service, sing along with the people around you, and call it worship. Worship alone, though in this sense, is incomplete. Only when we worship in what Jesus calls Spirit and Truth in John 4 do our actions ultimately connect with the greater goal of loving God. 

How often do we hear people express their love for someone or something? Their spouses, macaroni and cheese, or the latest band. All receive love and adoration to some degree that is ok until it isn’t. As soon as the worship stops pointing us to the God who created every man and woman, music, and yes, macaroni and cheese, we have replaced God with something else, something lesser than. 

Worship is just an example of an action meant to lead us into a deeper love of God, but it can be hijacked when separated from the motivation of loving and knowing God, the greatest commandment. 

This divorce is the root of legalism. Actions or habits are elevated above God and seen as the actual test of devotion or religiosity. Jesus contended with these people the most during his life and ministry. He did not criticize their lack of commitment or dedication but rather the way they used the religious system to point people to themselves rather than God. What was meant to be a bridge leading people to grace became an unbearable burden of obligation and joyless duty. The Pharisees sought to replace the love of God with rule-following and, in so doing, put themselves on the throne in His place. 

Our spiritual and physical habits refocus our attention and realign our hearts with what we both truly want and need. I’ve never needed to perform a loaded squat in my day-to-day life, but I do sit and stand, walk upstairs, and carry heavy objects regularly. Exercise makes all these easier and safer to perform, and I’m hoping that is the case for many years. 

Likewise, I rarely have people approach me with questions about what they read in the Bible as I serve coffee or grocery shop. The time I spend in the Bible with Jesus, however, shapes my heart and helps me remember the people I am interacting with are loved by God and looking for the same grace and mercy I am. If my time in the Bible is not prompting me to love, the problem is with me, not the scripture. 

At some point, there has been a breakdown of integrity in my life. What I am reading and learning isn’t translating to the rest of my life. I need to ask myself and maybe the community of faith I am living in to help me figure out what is going on and how to make the required adjustments. 

Failures like this are one of the biggest criticisms of the church and organized religion. Men and women practice spiritual habits out of compulsion or pride, devoid of love for other people or God. 

I don’t think people begin a spiritual journey to become hypocrites. Nor do most people ever desire that as an outcome if they were to be given a chance.

We slide into it. The rules or appearance of maturity become more important and give us a false sense of progression. We think we are better because we are simply doing better, not becoming better. Impressing Jesus becomes less important than impressing the people around us. 

A Common Problem

John, in Revelation 2, wrote to the church in Ephesus about this same problem. The community there began as men and women confessed their sins, trading in their temple worship for a relationship with Jesus. Temple prostitutes and a culture rampant with idolatry that kept a guild of silversmiths in business were part of the environment in which the early church was born out of. 

Jesus warns the church not to stray from their early beginnings in an attempt to clean up its image or appear to be better than they are. They have progressed in certain areas but, in the process, have become more like the Pharisees than the original disciples. Religion has been separated from their affection for God. Ritual and routine have become the dominant themes of their walk with God. 

The church seemed to excel superficially, but they were far from God. They had traded their purpose and original objective for something far less. The glory that was meant to go to God went to them for their effort. Paul taught them about this back in his letter to the church. Ephesians 2 clarifies that God was at work in and among the community there in Ephesus. He began the work in them as they were far from God and hostile toward Him. 

This work resulted in a deep love for God and each other, which Paul commends them for in the opening chapter of that letter. 

Conclusion

At some point along the way, the church in Ephesus lost its way between Paul’s and John’s writing. The disciplines and habits of spiritual life become more important than the God they were meant to serve. 

We can easily allow this to happen because of how prominent the daily habits and disciplines become. It takes work and effort to build a spiritual rhythm into our lives in a culture that is constantly clamoring for more of our attention and time. It is easy to elevate those habits in importance because of the effort they demand and celebrate them as an end in themselves when we start to make progress. 

Every four years during the summer Olympics, men and women compete in the weightlifting category and attempt to lift massive amounts of weight in the snatch and clean and jerk. For that one week, all that matters is the weight on the bar and getting as much above their head as possible. 

That one moment is hugely important and is the motivation behind the training. A good performance at the Olympics is a significant accomplishment that makes all the hard work and training worth it, whether it results in a medal or not.  

The benefit that those athletes receive, though, go far beyond the games. Improved strength, endurance, and flexibility are common to every participant. The men and women competing also benefit from the structure and discipline that come with regular training. This is in addition to improving diet and nutrition, sleep, and an overall emphasis on health and well-being. The few lifts the athletes have at the Olympic games will receive most of the attention, but their entire lives benefit tremendously from the overall preparation. 

Spiritually we can over-identify with spiritual gifts or disciplines and forget about simply loving God and our neighbor. Our churches encourage and promote practices like evangelism, teaching, or missions and personal habits like study, solitude, and prayer. Let us not forget to tie all these together with a renewed love for God with all we have and to let that love pour over to our neighbors. This is the mark of a life lived for Jesus and the way people around us will be able to recognize us as his followers.