Spiritual Obesity

I love Thanksgiving because it’s a holiday that hasn’t been completely commercialized. Some call it Turkey Day to diminish it, perhaps. But on Thanksgiving we have prayer, eat a wonderful meal, and go into a collective coma for two hours. The last thing I want to do after I eat a big meal is exercise.

There can come a point in our spiritual lives when we actually can be guilty of overeating. We can be in church and enjoying the finest spiritual meals, studying the Bible together, worshipping together, and learning together. That’s all great. But if we don’t have an outlet for what we are taking in, it can be problematic.

We must give out what God has given to us, or we can actually reach a state of stagnation, a kind of spiritual obesity. It is called being sedentary. We need to be giving out what God has given us. This is a biblical principle. Jesus said, “Give, and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back” (Luke 6:38 NLT).

It’s important to have a new believer in your life, because he or she will energize you. Maybe one reason we don’t want new believers in our lives is because we don’t want to change our behavior. If we take a new believer to church and then go to lunch afterward, we can’t gossip. We’ll probably drive the speed limit. And we’ll probably do other things Christians should be doing already.

Maybe we don’t want that added pressure in our lives. Not only are we missing out on helping them, but we are missing out on helping ourselves.