Some 14 years ago, I was rather offended when a good and trusted Christian friend said to me in church one night: "Lose weight and get fit." Then, just a week or so later, a visiting prophetic speaker singled me out of a large congregation, pointed a long and bony finger at me, and said somewhat portentously: "Thus sayeth the Lord—Lose weight and get fit."

Quite prepared to be offended again (after all, the Bible does say that offences will come), I suddenly had the thought that the Bible also said something somewhere about things being confirmed by "two or three witnesses." Hmm.

Maybe God was telling me something? After all, I think I was around 105 kg then. Although I had been a weightlifter in my late teens and 20's, I hadn't seen the inside of a gym since then for some 25 years. And I certainly preferred driving to walking.

Bodily Exercise Profits

I was tempted to consign these "words" to the eternal refuse bin of "false prophecies," or at best, put them "on the shelf," which is a nicer way of saying much the same thing. After all, I remember the good old King James Version saying: "Bodily exercise profiteth little ..." (1 Tim. 4:8). I really liked that verse, and used it many times to justify what had become a typical Aussie "couch potato" lifestyle.

But then, with the benefit of later scholarship and Bible translation, I read the New King James Version of the same Scripture, and discovered this updated and revised version had inserted a little letter "a," making it now read: "Bodily exercise profits a little ..."

So I looked at some other, more modern versions and read the following:

• Physical exercise has some value (New Living Translation)
• For physical training is of some value (The Amplified Bible)
• Physical training is of some value (New International Version)
• Exercise is good for your body (The Contemporary English Version)

It had gone from "little" value to "some" value, and finally to being "good" for your body. So I thought maybe I had better think again, and that maybe—just maybe—God was trying to tell me something. Something I didn't particularly want to hear, but something I really NEEDED to hear.

Little did I know then, but I was about to embark on a life of greatly intensified international travel, long hours, and periods of high stress and pressure unlike anything I had ever known in my earlier years in business. Guess what? God knew best.

He knew He had bigger and more challenging things ahead for me, and that I would need good health and physical endurance to be able to do what He was calling me to do.

Then, I decided to eat better, exercise more and try to get adequate amounts of rest. I have no doubt that is the reason that today, at an age when many of my peers are retired and "past it," I am able to work harder for longer periods than ever in my life—and am loving it! My life is full of ever-new and more exciting ventures and challenges, and I look forward to each day with enthusiasm and vigor because I am fit in spirit, mind and body.

As Christians, it goes without saying that we must be "fit" spiritually. But we are also enjoined by the Bible to be fit physically—to treat our bodies as gifts, and to steward them as temples of the Holy Spirit that belong to God, not just to ourselves.

Our Body—The Temple Of The Holy Spirit

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:19-21, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

Paul indeed talks in a number of places about disciplining our body, knowing the importance of self control as a "fruit of the Spirit," and even of boxing and running a race—his way of telling us that God wants us to be the very best we can be for Him.

In the days of Paul and Jesus, people did not travel in cars, ride on escalators, and eat fat-laden, high-carbohydrate fast food. They walked and climbed up to 10 miles a day, and ate what we would today call a healthy "Mediterranean" diet of whole grains, legumes, fish, lean meat, fruit and vegetables. Someone estimated Jesus could have walked as many as 45,000 miles during His lifetime.

In those days, people did not have to join gyms to walk on treadmills—they walked just to get to where they were going. As Dr. Randall L. Braddom said in a recent article, "For the first time in the history of the human race, we no longer have to exercise! Catch 22: We are now using exercise machines to give us back the exercise that machines took away."

We are spirit beings, with a soul (our mind, emotions and will) and we live in a body. The body in a sense carries our soul and spirit around, so the state of our body is very important.

I have heard super-spiritual "giants" say they don't have time to exercise and worry about what they eat because they are too busy serving God. But no less a giant than C.H. Spurgeon died at the age of 61, overweight and unfit, regretting the fact that he had not taken better care of himself over the years. If he had taken more seriously the dictum to be a good steward of his body, he may well have had many more years with which to bless and enrich the Body of Christ.

Dr. Scott A. Johnson, a Florida-based Board-certified physician, said this in a recent article on www.christcentredmall.com: "One of the greatest ways the enemy has come against not only the church but also society in general is through their bodies.

"1 Thessalonians 5:23 says: 'And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole SPIRIT and SOUL and BODY be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Most Christians do not understand how important it is to take care of these separate parts.

"Our flesh, for the vast majority of Christians, is in total control of our dietary and exercise practices. This is why so many millions of Christians and non-Christians suffer defeat."

Part Two of this article will continue in the next Breakthrough Word.