"Exercise yourself unto godliness." 1 Timothy 4:7
Hello friends :)
I 've come across this outstanding article/sermon on the verse above. Below some excerpts that I could not help taking down.
p.s: I mean "outstanding'.
Exercise yourself unto godliness'
[Godliness] demands the full bent, and strenuous exertion of the mind. There is much meaning in the original word which the apostle here uses, and which is translated "exercise." The literal rendering is--Be gymnasts in godliness. (...)And why should we not? The aims are infinitely higher, and the rewards are infinitely greater. The arena in which we are to perform this exercise, is in the Church of God. The methods by which we are to do it are as various as our various temperaments, tastes, positions, talents, and opportunities. There is no one who cannot do something; and upon all is laid the duty of living to the glory of God.
Thus true religion is a very
personal and
practical thing. Personal--because it is yourself that is to do the exercise; it is an individual act, and no amount of exercise done by those around you in the same family, the same church; can avail to your benefit. It is yourself who must be the moral gymnast in this spiritual conflict.
And it is practical-- because the things in which we are to exercise ourselves unto godliness are all around our daily life. We are to exercise ourselves in restraining a quick temper, in checking impatience, in bridling the tongue, in ruling the spirit, in rooting out personal defects of mind and heart; in overcoming temptations to lust, and pride, and envy, and hatred, and strife; in bearing with the infirmities of others, in being meek under reproach, in not rendering railing for railing, in not murmuring at God's dispensations, in subduing indwelling sin.
And to this
repressive work, which demands constant exercise, there is to be added an
aggressive work--a watching of opportunities for good, a going out into the field of active Christian exertion, a giving up of some portion of time to works of Christian love and duty, a readiness to give liberally, to teach lovingly, to sacrifice cheerfully of our comforts--that we may do good to the poor, the base, the ignorant, the outcast, the prisoner, the sick, the afflicted. And if we can do no more, we can give a cup of cold water to some one of Christ's sorrowing ones, and that "shall not lose its reward."
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