“Listen to me now. Believe me later. Understand me at another time.” Hanz or Franz
I come from a family of bodybuilders. I don’t know what happened to me. In the words of my uncles, I got my muscles in my mouth.
Regardless, I heard a lot of bodybuilder chatter growing up. Terms like “Training to failure”, “burn” and “pose down” were all a part of the family vernacular. My uncles were natural bodybuilders. They competed before steroids were big, so to speak, in that world. My uncles moved past their bodybuilding prime just when steroids were entering its. I remember my uncles talking about all the young punks on steroids who were in the new wave of bodybuilders. Steroids were the hush-hush injections of manufactured muscle that would turn you from a 98 pound weakling into a 298 pound knuckle dragger in nothing flat.
Today steroids are illegal in professional sports (except, of all things, bodybuilding) and should be. These dangerous drugs can overbuild muscles like the heart and cause a premature death. They can also cause some unpleasant side effects. I’ve seen juiced up guys and girls in the gym who have taken steroids and suffered as a result. From zits to stretchmarks to unwanted hair to roid rage, steroids are a very unnatural substance for the human body to injest.
But there is a spiritual “steroid” that has no bad side effects. It is the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. In 2 Timothy 1:6,7 Paul reminds Timothy, “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.”
The Holy Spirit injected Timothy with a shot of power that would give him the strength to carry on Paul’s apostolic work long after he was gone. It turned him from a “timid” Timothy into a spiritual power house.
Guess what? This same power is available for us who believe (Ephesians 1:18-20)! All we must do is yield to the indwelling Trainer within and he will inject us with all the spiritual strength we need to win against sin and Satan.
If you want God to use you to accomplish THE Cause, His Cause, you’re going to need all the divine muscle you can get.
Believe me now.
