time marches on

While you read this, I suggest you listen to this song, the inspiration for this post. Over the last few months I've developed an affinity for modern piano music.

Anyway, time marches on. That's a pretty easy and obvious statement and truth. No matter what we do, we can count on the sun rising again the next day after 24 hours, unless Jesus decides to come back the next day. We grow old and age, and the old axiom holds true, the only certain things in life are death and taxes.

I'm on the cusp of a new stage in life. An odd transition from a full time student to a part time barista, to hopefully in the next couple weeks, a full time employee of something that pertains to science and what I spent the last four years studying. I have been praying about interviews and job leads and all that stuff, and it's been accompanied by varying degrees of anxiousness. At the same time, several of my closest friends that have been with me for the last 4 years are about to peace out as the academic year comes to a close, and they finally meet me in the club of people who hold bachelors degrees, or I'm about to leave younger friends who still have a year or 2 or 3 or 4 before they can join the club. My life is about to undergo a paradigm shift if you will (if you don't know what that means, go look it up). For me, at times like these, God slowly morphs more into an advice bank rather than the Lord of my life. I want clear cut easy answers, to know the exact path in life to take, and while I believe that God has a plan for my life, I believe that it is impossible to seek that plan without seeking Him first.

When a new phase in life is about to begin, I always look to Joshua 1 for encouragement. If you're not familiar with the passage go read it. I'll wait patiently. OK got it? Just in case you didn't, I'll sum it up for you.

Essentially, Joshua is now in charge of the wandering Israelites after Moses bites the dust, and God is telling Joshua over and over again "to be strong and courageous." Joshua has giant shoes to fill. He's replacing Moses. You know, 1st ballot Jewish Hall Of Famer Moses, the self proclaimed "Humblest man on Earth" (Numbers 12:3 look it up. It's hilarious if you think about it). Anyway, I imagine that Joshua was looking forward to this day with an uneasy amount of anxiety and anticipation. He was waiting in the wings, waiting for his shot and now that day is here. He is to lead an unorganized, unruly people on a great military campaign through the promise land who didn't really enjoy listening to Moses, despite the fact that they saw him part the Red Sea, magical bread appeared every morning, and his face glowed after he talked to God.

God's advice to Joshua of being strong and courageous doesn't seem all that inspirational on face value. It sounds like something you could find out of the latest self help book. But look closely and see where Joshua will be drawing his strength from. First, God tells him to obey the law that Moses had given him in verse 7. God tells him in verse 9, "the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."

I don't want to draw to many parallels between my life and Joshua, because I feel like that would be doing Joshua a great injustice, but let's look at what we can learn from this.

When God tells you that he'll be with you, don't take that lightly. For 40 years, God was physically with the Israelites as a giant pillar of fire or pillar of cloud depending on the time of day. Jesus tells us in the great commission that he, "will be with you always, to the very end of the age." Romans 8:11 says that the very same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in us.

God isn't telling Joshua to be courageous for the sake of being courageous. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. He is telling him to be strong because the God who is with him is the one true God, the one who is good, the one who is almighty, the one who is eternal. We are strong because Christ is strong enough to conquer death and rise up from the grave so that we can stand clean and blameless before the Father.

That sounds nice doesn't it? Sounds like you could put that in a greeting card, or write it in an encouraging note to a friend. But don't neglect the first part of what God's advice to Joshua, keeping the law.

WAIT! Hold on a sec Phil. I thought you were one of those evangelicals with a protestant background who is always bashing the law. Hear me out. I think "keeping the law" gets a bad rap in today's Westernized Christianity, and no doubt, "keeping the law" can slip into legalism and all that nasty stuff. But I think that when the Israelites held to their notions of the law, it wasn't out of begrudging duty. The Law was their insight into the character of God. It pointed them to the holiness and perfection that is Yahweh. It's hard for us today to imagine anyone loving a rule book, but I don't think the Israelites saw the law as just a rule book. The law was their picture, there glimpse into the person of God. They were to obey the Law out of a  love for the God who loved them, who created them and led them out of Egypt. For us, we must study God's word, understand what it says, understand why and how we know that God being with us is a good thing. So often we want to know God's plan for our lives without listening  and talking to God. We don't engage God, we just hope that he will engage us.

Jeremiah 29:11 is fairly common in Christian circles, when God is telling Israel that he has plans for them. But it comes with the implication of verses 12 and 13, not so well known which says that Israel will call out to God and seek him with all their hearts.

See, I don't know where I'm going to be in 3 months. What I do know, is that God's will is going to be accomplished. It could be drastically different from what I want in life. My friends and surroundings will no doubt change. Time will march on. So what is my response? To seek God first. You can't know His plan without knowing him first. And quite frankly, if you don't know him, you probably won't like his plan anyway.

phil's story corner

This week at OSU, it is outreach week for Real Life. If you've been walking around this campus, you might have seen the giant 7 foot boards with a lot of pictures on them. You should check them out, it's pretty cool.

The aim and purpose of this week is to hear the stories of everyone across the campus. And to see how God's bigger story intersects with our own. And well, here's my part of the story. I presented this in front of our weekly meeting a couple months ago.

At a pretty early age, I accepted Christ as my savior and wanted to live my life to please him, but as a young lad of only six years of age when I made the decision to follow Christ, I had absolutely no idea what that entailed. It was a rare Sunday when my family and I did not find ourselves sitting in the pews of the church.  Sunday school and Bible studies were a part of my weekly routine as I grew up. And when God just became another thing I did in addition to a plethora of other activities I was involved in, his significance became lost on me. He became a boring, uninteresting figure, unable to provide me with any real fulfillment. Yeah I would say and do all the Christian things, but the things I said I believed and the way I lived didn’t always match up. I claimed Jesus was in driver seat of my life, but in reality I doubted whether a man who lived 2000 years ago and an ancient book could really offer me any satisfaction in this 21^st century world. So I looked for satisfaction in myself and indulged anything that made me feel good.  I put my identity in my athletic prowess, my musical talents, and outstanding school work, anything where I rose above the rest of my peers to make me seem like I was the best this society had to offer. It made me feel good, and I’d give a shout out to Jesus if I had to.

When I got to college, I felt it necessary to seek out a Christian group on campus and looked for a group that would act as my moral compass now that I had moved away from home. Now I don’t know if it was the free laundry bag at the OSU involvement fair or the attractive girl I recognized from my high school handing out the free laundry bag, but I was somehow drawn to the Real Life booth and compelled to check out what this thing was all about it. I vividly remember that first meeting as the lights dimmed and the music came on, and I saw young college students worshiping  and singing with genuine hearts. The enthusiasm was something that I had never really experienced before. And it was the same way in the small group Bible study I began to get involved with. We would study passages and stories that I was familiar with, and thought I had all the easy answers to, but the way my Bible study leaders analyzed and looked at scripture was something incredibly new to me. They actually enjoyed studying the Bible, and didn’t see it as a chore. God was real and it was evident in the way they lived their day to day lives. So in my efforts to imitate my new friends, I joined the crowd at Real Life. I made it my number one priority, put it at the top of my list, and it was a rare Wednesday or Thursday night when I wasn’t at a Real Life function of some sort. I did all these things to satisfy my spiritual quota for the week and feel good about my standing with God. It became routine, and although the routine was fun and I experienced great community and love, my experience was hollow, although I didn’t know it at the time.

By the time my freshman year ended, I thought I had grown a lot in my faith and had a great community surrounding me. Then summer came around, and that community vanished, and any semblance of growth that I experienced did to. I no longer had a regular schedule or structure and I ran out of Christian events to go to. My summer saw me returning to my old patterns of sin at home where myold habits resurfaced and God once again God no longer seemed relevant. Was everything that I experienced during my freshman year just a lie, just some good emotions that had no merit? I struggled with these feelings, desperate for school to start again in the fall, so I could fill my time doing good Christian things once more.

I was relieved when my Sophomore year started. I started leading a Bible study and started filling up my time with ministry events. But the satisfaction and good feelings I got from doing ministry felt empty and left me tired. I wondered what was I doing wrong. Why did God feel like he wasn’t present in my life It was then that through a series of talks with my old Bible study leader that I began to realize what I was putting my hope and identity in.

All my life I had thought of myself as either a good student, or the athlete, or the funny friend, or the musician who happened to be a Christian, who wanted to put Jesus first. But I realized the error in my thinking and had the wrong viewpoint of who my Lord is. Jesus isn’t another aspect of my life that fits alongside my other priorities. He doesn’t even want to be number one in a sea of priorities. He’s not an item on the list, he is the list. He should permeate through every aspect of our lives. When the Bible tells us to confess Jesus as Lord, it means that he is Lord over everything.  It doesn’t matter that I had perfect attendance here on Thursday nights. When I fall into sin, I can’t do enough good or feel bad enough about what I did to somehow earn my way back into God. When we put our identity and self worth in Christ, we see that we can’t do anything to add to what he already did. He saved me from sin and death, and begs me to enjoy him, not work for him. When I realized this truth of the Gospel, I can’t help but feel genuine excitement and love simply for who God is and experience real victory over sin.

Now I still struggle with attempting to earn my salvation, feeling it necessary to prove to God that I deserve him, and viewing God as an activity I do rather than someone I worship. But every time I fall short and have this wrong view, I am reminded that Jesus said “it is finished” on the cross and all my sin and shortcomings have been washed away. And that’s the greatest reminder and reassurance that I could ever have.

good friday and Easter musings

It's Good Friday today. You know the story right? It's the day we remember when all of God's perfectly justified wrath on mankind was all placed on his son. A few thoughts have been in my head all day.

At the start of his ministry, Jesus is baptized, and as he comes out of the water, the Bible says,
"And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." Mark 1:11

At the end of his ministry, Jesus is on the cross, and he finds himself alone, crying out,
"My God my God, why have you forsaken me?" Matthew 27:46

The same Father who found great joy in his beloved son, now has to turn his back on him as the full wrath of God that was intended for mankind, for you, for me, is placed completely on Jesus.

That's what happened because of our sin. Sin isn't just something that makes us feel bad about ourselves. It is our sin, that as a great hymn says, "held Him there, until it was accomplished." Our sins were the nails in his hands, the spear in his side.

We are all like Peter. We will deny Christ as we pretend that we don't know him as we live our lives in sin. We abandon him. Yet even though our sins condemned him, Jesus decides to save us.

A man without sin can't be held by the grave. If the wages of sin is death, then the grave has no reason to hold Jesus, the one without sin, but the one who took on the sins of the world so we didn't have to.

A good man who taught lessons through metaphors couldn't do that. Jesus is not simply a good moral teacher. He is not just a historical figure who was crucified for causing a ruckus in Roman occupied Israel. He is the King of Kings, Lord of Lords who fights for a world he loves, and wins.

So Jesus rises from the dead. He conquers it. He defeats it forever. The battle, the war, the victory is his, and he shares that with us. That's grace. When we were the ones that put Christ on the cross, yet when Jesus complete's the ultimate comeback story, he wants us to share in the victory with him. So we rejoice, we sing hymns, we worship, we celebrate.

The greatest story ever written as a dramatic ending. The hero dies in the middle, but he wins in the end.

#TrueStory

Happy Easter

what's the story?

If you had to define Christianity, or what it meant to be a Christian, what would you say?

I ask that to students who claim the Christian faith as the religion that they subscribe to. I get a variety of answers. Most of the time, I hear something along the lines of this:

It means you believe in God. It means you try to be a good person. You know follow the golden rule. Don't curse, don't drink, don't smoke, don't have sex before your married. You know stuff like that. You go to church.

I always find it curious that students neglect an important part of their definition. They complete leave out the "Christ" aspect. Christ is the Greek translation of Messiah, which of course means savior.

Christianity is all about the need for a savior.

The suffix "ity" is used to form nouns expressing the condition corresponding to the root word. Therefore, Christianity encompasses those who have a savior, those who have been saved.

What makes you a Christian is not some high moral code that you abide by. It's not about how many Sunday's you've gone to church.

It's about admitting your need for a savior. It's about having a personal relationship with the God of the universe. It's following a man who died, but you won't find him in any burial site. Instead, you'll find him on a throne.

It's about knowing a God who loved the world, even a world that hated him and wanted nothing to do with him. Despite the rebellion, God offers an olive branch. An exchange, a trade, a substitution took place that looks like a poor business transaction, a poor career move. Jesus abandons his post by the side of the Father to walk in  a world that mocked him and put him to death? The very world he was trying to save? What kind of a God does that?

A God that loves the world and wants to dwell with his people. Who wants to know every single of us intimately. One that hates sin and loves righteousness.

It's Holy Week. It's the home stretch of the Lent. For some that means next Friday you don't have to eat a fish sandwich from McDonald's or Wendys. For others, they can resume drinking pop and eating chocolate. 

Jesus didn't die so you could go on a diet for 40 days. He didn't die because he wants you to live by a moral code. He died because he wants to know you, he wants to walk with you, and live with you for eternity.

He died because he loves you.

That's a #truestory

basketball and medieval theology

I just graduated from college this past week. That should alone be the cause for a lot of excitement this March, but honestly, I'm probably more excited about March Madness, where I typically dominate bracket pools, year in and year out ( two keys to domination: 1. always ride a Tom Izzo coached team deep into the tourney, 2. Always pick a 5 vs 12 upset in the first round, 3. never be in the same pool as me, because I will destroy you).

My final quarter at OSU, I needed to take more classes to be a full time student, so for fun, I decided to take a class that sounded interesting, Medieval Christianity, which happened to be a 500 level history course. Word of advice to all you students out there: don't ever take a difficult class you don't need the last year you're in college on the basis that you'll be interested in the subject matter and actually want to do the work. You might be interested, but you definitely won't want to do the work, especially when that work involves writing a ten page research paper on a text from the 13th century.

Still, that class was very interesting, and looking at Christianity through a medieval lens gave me new insight into how people acted then, and how eerily similar that people today act.

In the early middle ages, if you were to ask a clergyman what was the biggest problem or sin that the church dealt with, his answer no doubt, would be pride. A thousand years later, in Mere Christianity, CS Lewis would agree that pride is the great sin that plagues people in the modern world. As time progressed, thanks to a period of unseasonably warm weather that allowed crops to grow and the advent of the heavy plow, Western Europe experienced a period of economic growth and a middle merchant class emerged out of society. A clergyman in this period would say that the biggest problem that plagued people was the sin of greed. Medieval art depicts images of people being dragged down to Hell because of the weight of money bags that hung around their necks, as demons laughed in the shadows, grasping a money bag of their own. I suppose not many of you out there would disagree with the statement that this world would be a whole lot nicer if people weren't so selfish with their money and wealth.

When it comes to filling out a bracket each March, I'm reminded of how pride and greed still hold sway over me. In years past, I would put down a small wager of $10 that would hopefully increase ten fold in a month as the teams I picked would surely advance further in the tournament. This year, there is no money involved, but still, I find myself checking my phone and computer for results and standings to ensure that I'm still the leader of the group (at the time of this posting, I am #1 and in the 92nd percentile of all brackets on espn.com!). Interestingly enough, I'm probably even more invested personally in this year's tournament, even though I have nothing to gain monetarily from winning, just the satisfaction of looking my friends in the eye and letting them know that I my knowledge of college basketball vastly exceeds their own. I'm playing for pride. For some reason, I want them to know that I'm better than them in what is honestly, a pointless competition. After all, I won't be the one cutting down the nets in New Orleans after the championship game is played. In about a month, we'll all forget that this pool even existed anyways.

I'm not saying that bracket pools are of the devil, and are sinful. But they do reveal sinful tendencies. It's easy to go to the Bible and read in Proverbs 3 that God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. In 1 Timothy 6:10, Paul writes that money is a root of all kinds of evil. You don't have to look too deeply into the scriptures to find out that prideful people and the greedy aren't all that receptive to the Lord's call on their lives.

As a new college grad, I have to remind myself of this every day. Just because I got to wear a special cap and gown this past Sunday and shake the hand of some dean, (I have no idea what her name was), I am in no way entitled to a job. God isn't somehow obligated to provide me with a cushy lifestyle just because I've graduated college, or just because I've been following Jesus for most of my life. 1 Peter 4:12-13 instead says,

"Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you.But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed."

A follower of Christ isn't entitled to a life of luxury, but rather a life marked by suffering. And if the Lord so chooses to bless me with financial security, will I still remember that all that I have belongs to him, and at anytime, he may take it away? Will I give back to his Kingdom, and store my treasure in heaven or invest in myself (Matthew 6)? Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all his possessions to follow him. If Jesus asked me to do the same, could I?

Pride and greed will always plague humanity, from the monarchies of the middle ages, to the democratic system of today. No social structure will ever change the sinful nature of human beings. The only solution is to put your faith in Christ. To recognize that God's way is better, that his treasure is worth eternally more than anything we could ever muster up here on earth. We must recognize that no matter what we do, we can't achieve God's standard of perfection, but instead exchange our own works for the work of Christ. Prideful people don't want to admit that they can't earn their way into heaven. The greedy can't bribe God with their money. But a humble Jesus, the only man who didn't deserve death, allowed himself to be put to death on the cross for the prideful, the greedy, the lustful, the idolaters, the gluttons, the selfish, the hateful, so that we could have the opportunity to know God.

By the way, I think Jesus would be able to beat all of us in a NCAA bracket challenge, but that's beside the point.

another post inspired by my attempts at studying for a midetrm

I've been studying Microbiology at Ohio State for a few years now, and whenever people ask me what my major is like, I sometimes like to tell them that, "it's like regular biology, but smaller." Now of course that doesn't really help them understand what I study, but they get a good laugh out of it, and then they move on with the rest of the conversation.

However, if I were to give an actual answer to what I've been studying over the last year, I'd probably say something about how my most interesting classes deal with how bacteria, fungus, and viruses attack the human body, and the immune response to those invaders. 

Simply put, the human body has special receptors on cells that can "see" invading pathogens, which are marked by special molecules on the surface of the bacteria/virus/fungus. When they "see" these molecules, they begin to mount the immune response, and hopefully they can eradicate the pathogen from the system. These receptors are good at recognizing signals that are specific only to outside invaders, and in a healthy human being, will not detect molecules that are on the surface of other host cells. The body can distinguish between "good" signals from "bad" signals.

Now you may be asking, if the body can see "bad" molecules, how come people still get sick and die?  

Well, I'm glad you asked!

One of the strategies that pathogens have developed to combat the immune system is something called mimicry. And it means exactly what it sounds like. Simply put, the bad molecules disguise themselves as host molecules so that they can go undetected by the initial lines of defense of the immune system. Once they get past the front lines, they start wreaking havoc on your body, and if the body can't adjust, well, bad things can happen to you.

Much in the same way a virus can enter the human body undetected, so does sin.

Yeah it's easy to call out sin when it's obvious. Most people know the ten commandments, the go to list of things that make God angry.

Don't lie? Committing adultery? Why would anyone do that? Put God first and don't have idols? Well God gave us these commandments so I should probably follow them. Following these rules can't be too hard... right?

Except of course we make exceptions all the time.

Maybe I'll just stretch the truth a little bit, just this one time, so I don't get in trouble or make this person upset.

I'm not going to commit adultery, heck I'm not even married. But hey, I'm a sexual being. You can't fault me for being a just a regular guy (or girl) with hormones.

Yeah God is great and all, but he'd want me to enjoy all this money, this big house, this giant TV, this great job right? 

This is how sin infiltrates our lives. They put on the mask of rationalization. But why lie to a friend when true friends can be honest with one another? Doesn't Jesus make it clear in Matthew 5:28 when he says, "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."? How easily do we fill our time with the pleasures that money can buy, that we forget to worship and look to God for ultimate fulfillment and satisfaction. I'm not saying wealth is a bad thing, but at the end of the day, are you putting your hope a God who never fails, or the mercy of a bank account and an unstable economy?

See, we rationalize all these ideas in our lives, and when our sin is finally exposed for what it is by the Holy Spirit, we have a tough time letting go of bad habits. The disease of sin so firmly entrenched in our lives, it's incredibly difficult to remove it.

Yes, Jesus is the answer, the cure to this disease. He is the God who heals us. But will we continue and listen to what Jesus is telling us? Calling out sin for what it is, not allowing it to slip by our defenses. We must, "put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires," (Romamns 13:14). We don't conquer sin or grow in our walks by going about sinning with no heart for repentance, and then come back to God saying, forgive me. Rather, we look at the world through the eyes of Christ, identifying the sin in our lives, turning away from the path that leads to death and destruction. And when we lose sight, we are all the more reminded of why we needed Jesus in the first place.

Because ultimately at the end of the day, our hearts and our flesh will fail, but our God never will.

because the gym is too crowded

I find new years resolutions so entertaining. This week, I'm not going to the gym because everyone is a fitness expert this week, and the gym will be hosting amateur hour, all week long. All the weights and machines will be taken and it will smell (more than usual) and be terribly crowded. We all know that in about a couple weeks, most of these young fitness gurus will return to their televisions and gym attendance will return to normal. But I admire their desire to change and better themselves, but unfortunately, they can't sustain their desires. The few that do continue on usually have a sense of direction. They have an experienced friend who does know what he is doing, showing them what to do, teaching them correct form, spotting them, helping them. They have gone before them and understand that staying in shape is hard work.

The gospel is a lot like a new years resolution. It gives us a fresh new start. When we accept Jesus into our lives, we have a fresh clean start. Our sins have been wiped away. Sins that were as red as scarlet have been made as white as snow. When you first accept Christ, you are swept up in a whirlwind of emotions and you say to yourself, "I'm going to be the best person ever!" And then a couple weeks later, you find yourself mired and stuck in the same sin that you struggled with before, left wondering, "Jesus, I thought my life with you would be changed and different. I thought it would be new." Maybe later in life, you'll renew and rededicate your life to Christ, whether it be because of a traumatic life event, a conference, a sermon, something, and you'll say the exact same things again. And again you'll fail. I don't mean to be a downer, but that's the truth. I've experienced this in my life countless times.

But the beauty of the gospel is that we're supposed to fail. Our failures show us our complete and utter helplessness and shows us why exactly Christ had to die for our sins. We have to continue to come back to the cross. We can't keep trying to better ourselves through our own efforts, through our own strengths. We have to look to Jesus to be our strength. The perfect man lived the perfect life that we could not and died the death that we deserved, and rose from the dead like we never could. There is nothing we can add to that. We can't add anything to perfection.

When Jesus said "It is finished" (John 19:30) he meant it. Hebrews 10:12 says that Christ sat down after he had offered a one time sacrifice for all sins. Unlike our new years resolutions, we can't do anything to add to our salvation. To understand the gospel means to look at where our efforts end and where the work of Jesus begins.

The call in our walks with God isn't to be a better person. Christianity is not about behavior modification. It's about striving to know God better. We want to desire to desire God more, to know Him more intimately. Yes, like the skinny college freshmen who set foot in the gym for the first time ever this year, we will stumble and lose our way as we try to build up "spiritual muscle." But we have to realize that we do very little lifting because we have a trainer with us. Actually, he's more than a trainer. A believer of Christ has the Holy Spirit. By training with the Spirit, Galatians 5 tells us that we will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature, and the fruit of walking by the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control. Walking with the Spirit allows us to live a life that we long to have, but it is impossible on our own strength. God does the heavy lifting for us. Our role is to show up to the gym, take a step of faith and believe that God is going to be there, and work through us. By wanting more of Jesus, by inviting him into our lives, he makes us grow.

This isn't to say that we just sit back and do nothing. We have to continue to show up to the gym.
"Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." Philippians 2:12-13
Do you see what Paul is saying here? He says, pursue God, obey him, recognize know that mighty power, because that very same power will be at work in you. So continue taking steps of faith. Continue chasing after Jesus by spending more time with him, getting to know him better, getting to understand the character of the God of the universe who saw it fit to save us from our sins when we were helpless. By inviting Christ into our lives and making our lives revolve around him, he begins to change us from the inside out. He is the one changing our desires. True change comes when Jesus removes our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). God shows us that it is desirable to get to know him better and do his will for our lives.

Life may not feel easier. In fact it will probably be harder. You will be faced with the reality of living for a perfect kingdom while still in an imperfect world. Only by the Spirit leading you will you be able to continue on. But building spiritual muscle implies that you must tear down the old muscle (old sin). But only Jesus can break you're struggles with sin. You can't. And that's the whole point.

But, if you're not serious about getting into physical shape, please don't go to the gym next week, because I need to do some maintenance on this body, and I don't like having to wait for machines.