{"id":9667,"date":"2022-11-19T04:04:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-19T04:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9667"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:47","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:47","slug":"strength-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=9667","title":{"rendered":"STRENGTH TRAINING"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to take the prize.\u00a0<\/i>Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable.\u00a0<\/span>Therefore I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight like I am beating the air.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>No, I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.<\/i>“<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n

I Corinthians 9:24-27<\/p>\n\n\n

Serious athletes train by giving extra attention to diagnosing areas of weakness and then extra effort to learn new skills in those areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

They are always evaluating their daily performance with this question in mind: “Where do I most need to make progress?”\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Nothing gets swept under the rug. No excuses are accepted.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Paul reminds us that we should approach our faith with at least as much dedication as a serious athlete approaches physical training.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

If you were looking at general trends in the American church and were asked to list our greatest collective weaknesses, what would you put in the top three? *<\/p>\n\n\n

Mine would include:<\/p>\n\n\n

    \n\n
  1. Knowing the basics of the faith.<\/li>\n\n\n
  2. Spiritual disciplines<\/li>\n\n\n
  3. Materialism<\/li>\n\n<\/ol>\n\n\n

    What would it look like if the church took the mindset of a serious athlete toward our spiritual shortcomings?<\/p>\n\n\n

    ______________<\/p>\n\n\n

    * The scarier questions are “What are my personal areas of spiritual weakness?” And “What am I personally doing to turn those weaknesses into strengths?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to take the prize.\u00a0Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9668,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9667\/revisions\/9668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}