The Law of Spiritual Growth

"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."


Moral powers, like the muscles of the body, are developed by exercise.
The unused arm shrivels up;
the unused hand loses its cunning;
the unused brain loses its force.
The law of physical growth and strength, is exercise.
The law of spiritual growth and strength, is spiritual exercises--doing with our might what our hands find to do, laboring with all diligence to make our calling and election sure, working while it is day, and giving our bodies to be "living sacrifices, holy, acceptable unto God."

Our moral character is a thing of growth, and of slow growth; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full grain in the ear. Character is principle put into practice, and developed under trial. This wrestling with difficulties, with temptations, with disappointments--develops the strength and brawn of the mind; and makes strong and firm, the affections of the heart. It is a succession of . . .
little daily victories over little daily trials;
little daily resistings of little temptations;
little daily puttings forth of earnest, truthful efforts for good
--which go to make up a well-developed character.

The sculptor, in the vividness of his imagination, mentally depicts the figure which he will chisel out of the marble block before him; but before his ideal becomes a reality, before his hand fashions what his fancy portrayed--how many weeks and months must he "exercise himself" in his art, with patient hammer, with skillful chisel, with cautious hand--before the marble breathes with the artist's life, and the stone speaks out the sculptor's thoughts.
So it is with the production of godliness. It is not the product of a day, the work of a few mental resolves. It is the result of strenuous exercise--the quiet, earnest, persistent, unyielding, daily toil of the heart yearning after the glory of God, struggling to become like God.

Excerpts from "The Law of Spiritual Growth' by William Bacon Stevens