Luke 10:27
He said in reply, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."
A few years back I made a conscious effort to change my eating and exercise habits to become a more healthy person. I'm proud to say I succeeded! But just because I hit my goal weight and felt better didn't mean my quest was over. I needed to make a life long change and something like that is not always easy to keep up with. Let's be honest, we all let ourselves go sometimes. Recently I found myself back in those unhealthy habits again and had to redirect my efforts toward a healthy lifestyle. One of the ways I have done that is to (don't laugh) use exercise DVDs. In the latest one I am using the instructor is trying to motivate the person on the other side of the TV (me) to keep going and not give up. Which by the way is the most annoying part of working out to a DVD! One of the ways she encourages me to not give up is by reminding me that there is "no magic pill". I have to put in the work if I want to see the results.
I think the scribe in our passage today was looking for the magic pill for heaven. He comes to Jesus and asks what he will have to do to get eternal life. The response he got was that he needed to make a life change and keep working on that change until the very end. There is no magic pill to being a good Christian. I have to work hard every day to love God, myself and my neighbor. And anytime I get lazy in one of these areas the other areas suffer. To continue the healthy life analogy if I'm exercising but not eating right I'm still going to be unhealthy. Going to Church on sunday is kind of like my exercise DVD. It's going to give me motivation to continue but I still need to eat right. That's where my everyday interactions with God's word and His people come into play. I have to allow God keep pouring that spiritual nutrition into my life. So today I am encouraged to put the work in. Make that commitment to a healthy spiritual life.
There is no magic pill, but loving God, neighbor and self sure is less exhausting than doing those workout DVDs!
