Spiritual Training Cycle: Examination (wk. 10/13)
When the CrossFit Open begins, athletes the world over get excited to compare themselves against one another. Judges are required to ensure a standard is met that every athlete must adhere to. When an athlete attempts to complete a movement but doesn’t meet the standard, a callout of “no rep” is made. These standards are extremely useful in this competitive landscape. It is necessary to make these kinds of standards. However, when we try to apply these standards to our spiritual lives, we find ourselves often feeling like every step is a “no rep.” We can feel so much turmoil because of this failure. We must develop the mindset that a “good rep” is only found when we are rooted to Christ. Peace is found when we are rooted in Christ.
In bodybuilding, reps and sets are designed for stimulus and not for evaluating “good vs bad.” This can be frustrating to watch as we might see a muscular bodybuilder performing “half reps” or “partial reps” in an uploaded video and judge them based on whether they actually completed a full rep. If we feel our standard isn’t being met, we will flood the comment section to let the bodybuilder know. We believe that there should only be one standard and ours is the clear winner. We fail to see that progress can be found in the messy and incomplete rep.
When it comes to spiritual growth, people want to evaluate themselves with the same level of standardized progress. They want to see the output of their lives measured as good or bad. But there’s an inherent problem here. We are human. We aren’t all good or all evil. If we fanatically tell ourselves we are all good, we allow ourselves to neglect the times we sinned and justify our behaviors. If we fanatically tell ourselves we are all evil, then we end up stuck in shame and a belief that we are incapable of being saved. Inevitably, we need help to bridge this gap.
In Luke chapter 6, Jesus is speaking to a large crowd in what appears to be His magnum opus, a rousing speech instructing on how to love your enemies, remove judgment of others, and directing our focus to the internal work of seeing the output of our hearts. Luke 6:43 & 45 reads,
“No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit…A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart.”
Jesus is showing us the nature of where good and evil comes from as it is stored in our hearts. But there is still room for us to get stuck on one side or the other. Good or evil. Thankfully, the apostle Paul gave us some additional insight in Ephesians 3:17 saying “Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.”
Between these two passages we learn anything good that comes from us is actually a representation of the goodness of God’s love through Christ. We can’t be all good in what we say or what we do, so we must anchor ourselves to Christ who is perfect in His love in what He says and what He does.
His goodness is the path to peace to fight against the turmoil of our own failures. If we get stuck in the “no reps” of our lives, we will never see the peace God has for us. Even a partial rep, if it is used to move our hearts closer to Jesus, is a good rep. Even a messy rep, if it is used to grow deeper in our faith in Him, is a good rep. We can have peace knowing Jesus will perfectly complete our reps.
Questions for Reflection:
When have you been able to see “good fruit” in your life that was rooted in Christ? What about bad fruit?
What are some ways to root yourself deeper in Christ to experience more goodness in life?
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