Physical activity is more than just looking good. It is essential to overall health. It can prevent heart disease and strokes. For the activity to mean anything, we must do it for over a certain period of time. The American Heart Association recommends at least 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise, or 30 minutes a day, five times per week, to experience the benefits of physical activity. Physical activity includes walking, climbing, cleaning, jogging, weight training, or any type of movement.
Upon Moses’ death, Joshua took over the leadership of the Israelites. God prepared him with these words: “This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful,” Joshua 1:6. God knew that he would face many battles and challenges from the Israelites, and he gave the formula of success: spend time with God.
The information God gave Joshua is meant for us today. Imagine what could happen with our spiritual lives if we spent 30 minutes per day with the Lord. Exercising our faith requires us to spend time with the Lord. If we want to see change in our lives or our worship, we must make a significant difference in our relationship with God. We must spend time with God daily and remain committed. We will worry less, because the time we have spent with the Lord has deepened our trust in him.
Instead of allowing anger to overtake us, we will have the power to turn all of that over to the Lord. Time with the Lord will enable us to love God and people more. Most importantly, an increased time with the Lord will increase the love we have for ourselves and give us mountain-moving faith.
The time we spend with the Lord must become habitual, purposeful, and intentional. In the time we spend with the Lord, it should involve spiritual activities such as prayer, meditation, fasting, feeding the hungry, Bible study, listening for direction, and other activities that help us to connect with God.
The time with the Lord will give us increased spirituality and physicality, because we will become more reliant on what we can do through Jesus Christ than ourselves. We seem to find time to work, take care of children, texting, posting and reading social media, enjoying entertainment, personal problems and that of others, but we seem to neglect the time that we need to spend with the Lord. We need God’s grace.
Let us exercise our faith, and over time our circumstances will change and our lives will not be the same. People will notice the change in us, and want to know how it happened. We will tell them that we simply spent more time with the Lord.
