"ELEVATION Comes Through OPPOSITION!"

"For exaltation comes neither from the east, nor from the west nor from the south. But God is the Judge: He puts down one and exalts another."

                                                                             (Pslams 75:6-7)

One thing I love about exercise and physical fitness is manipulating my body to do what it doesn't want to do. Actually, it's not my body at all; it is my mind that doesn't want to do certain things. My body does not have the ability to do things on its own. If I decided (in my mind) to stay in bed instead of going to the gym, then my body would just lay there and enjoy the comfort of my bed. The downside, however, is that I would not benefit from the exercise I missed by being lazy!

So I make the decision to go to the gym and place the weights on the bar, plug in my "Beats" headphones pumpin' Marley, lay back on the bench, take a few deep breaths and go to work! After a few reps, I feel the "burn" in my arms and chest, the weight get heavier and heavier with each rep. This is called "resistance" and, although it hurts like the hell, it is good for you! With each set, I get more and more fatigued, and the thought of quitting starts to trickle into my mind. Should I lessen the weight? Should I move on to another machine? I must remember what I came here for; I came here to live.

The thing I learned a long time ago is that "comparison" will kill you! I'm not talking about competing; I'm talking about comparison. I used to get sucked in to how much the guy next to me was lifting; I used to see people get hurt trying to out do one another. I saw people develop a lot of bad habits and have major breakdowns in form and technique. Ultimately, I saw many people, including myself, begin to cheat and lie about how many reps I did or how much I lifted. These were significant breaches in integrity. I had forgotten why I was coming here. I had come here to live.

Just like exercise and resistance training; when it comes to the things of God you have to know and understand that the mind can manipulate the body to do good or evil. The mind can send you into the abyss through submission to the kingdom of darkness or elevate you through opposition to the workers of iniquity. The Lord God will beckon you to, "Come on up a little higher!" He will place His "kabod" (glory, weightiness) upon you to test you and send you through the fire so that you will come out a pure gold. Can you hear Him by FAITH?

At the end of the day, all Believers who are "fit" for the Kingdom must remember why they accepted the invitation to come to into His Presence; as for me, I came here to live! Selah...