Go Till It BURNS!

While I love sports, exercise and being physically active, I have to admit that it's not exactly the thing that comes as naturally as breathing for me, and it's been a real challenge to do this regularly since having my children, juggling work and ministry!  Obviously I love the physical health benefits of sports and exercise once I have done it, but I am also loving the spiritual and mental benefits that I get from getting off my couch and just doing it, as Nike would say.

One lesson that I am slowly learning is to push myself till it burns!  Many times when I exercise, I settle for the fact that "hey, I got out there and did it" or I just keep to the number of reps that I have on the chart/plan, or only run for the amount of time or distance that I did before.  I don't even think about how much further I could actually push myself to do more than I did the week or day before, but just kind of slip into this auto-robot mode of exercise.  But lately I have been growing in my consciousness to PUSH TILL IT BURNS, and not settle for the fact that I've done it!  I am slowly pushing myself that much further, little by little, inch by inch and fighting every thought in my mind that tries to justify me not pushing further and that it's ok to settle.

Then I got to thinking about how SPIRITUALLY it's the same thing.  For many of us, we would probably just settle for the fact that "hey, I went to church on Sunday" or "I went to the monthly women's meeting in May" or "I've got my tithes/offerings on direct debit".  And not realise that we are actually NOT pushing ourselves to go beyond the autopilot of Christianity and following Christ.  Things have been made so convenient in our lives in the 21st century, that often we can become quite unconscious of our spiritual journey in God, to the point that we actually become unconscious of GOD HIMSELF and we don't even know it!  God moves on but we don't have a clue because we've just got our Christianity on autopilot and think we're going to make our destination without knowing that the REAL PILOT changed course and parachuted off our plane!!  What if God wanted me to pray longer with more depth and fervour?  What if God wanted me to give more money?  What if God wanted me to increase my commitment to a ministry?  What if God wanted me to give up my own hobbies or even church activities and spend quality investment time with my husband and children?  But I'm oblivious to His desires because I'm on autopilot with my spiritual routine and plan, and not actually engaging with the real pilot.

It's not enough for us to just go through the motions of Christianity unconsciously, and thus fool ourselves that we're ok.  God is not fooled, and we certainly don't want to hear Him say "Away from me I never knew you" when we try to bring up all our autopilot Christian works and justifications on that day.

Just as I have to give my physical muscles a real workout, we have really got to give our spiritual muscles a REAL workout EVERY TIME and go until it burns!  We've got to pursue GOD UNTIL HE BURNS IN US!  We've got to pray until we sense the burning of His Spirit in our spirit.  We've got to devour His Word until it is permanently burnt into the depths of our spirit and soul; until everything in our being CRAVES THE WORD OF GOD and we know we cannot live without it (real daily bread!).  We've got to fast and hunger for God until it burns!  No longer can we be on autopilot and think that our lives will change, or that we will have any kind of true impact on our world for Jesus Christ.

Let's discipline our minds, discipline our hearts, discipline our emotions, discipline our bodies and become true DISCIPLES of Christ who will change the world as Jesus' original 12 did in their day. It's time to GO TILL IT BURNS!