A Spiritual Workout

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it--he will be blessed in what he does.

One time, my family got a new work video and, of course, we wanted to try it out, but we were kind of tired that day. So, we put in the TV and all sat down on the couch. We could have watched the whole workout video every single day for 90 days just like it said to, but if we just sat down and watched it wouldn’t do us any good.

Everyone knows that in order to get the results you want, you actually have to work out. You can’t just sit back and watch. But that’s what a lot of people do with the Bible. They sit down and read the Bible over and over again, but as soon as they get up they forget everything that they read. It’s not doing them any good to read the Bible if they don’t apply it to their daily lives. I don’t know about you but I forget things all the time. I often forget what I read in my busy everyday life, but God knows this about us. That’s why he gave us these instructions to help us remember.

Deuteronomy 6:7-9

Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. You shouldn’t just remember what you read, though. We need to make sure that we actually put it into practice in our daily lives. It’s not going to be easy. Just like working out, it’s not always the funniest thing to do, but it’s worth the results. And God will forgive us when we messed up, because he knows were trying.