S05E007, Under Maintenance, Endurance

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On this episode, we explain the concept of spiritual maintenance.

Endurance is your weekly spiritual workout, whether you think of yourself as a beginner, an intermediate, or advanced!

#GoDeeper

For GoDeeper this week Steven starts us off by pointing out all the maintenance that athletes must do before they can actually exercise, such as warm-ups, cool-downs, and stretching.

He then points out that as Christians we also need some maintenance, so that we function at our best for what God has called us to. Plus, he explains the difference between growth and maintenance.

Steven draws our attention to an interesting verse in James 1 and goes on to give us an analogy for how to maintain our faith using the process of learning to play an instrument.

You can read the GoDeeper transcript here.

#GoDo

For the final segment, Nathan asks Steven some questions about his GoDeeper talk:

1. There’s a Scripture verse that says our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. I suppose that is why we need to take care of our spiritual bodies?
2. Are we always going to be under maintenance?
3. You talked about bitterness and other problems we face each day. I suppose they could be allegorically represented by mud trapped in the cogs of a bicycle or dirt that gets caught in a car’s engine. Would you agree?
4. How do you look after your trainers?

Check out this week’s episode to find out how Stevens answers these questions.

Steven and Nathan

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Transcript

Nathan 0:23
Hello, and welcome to Endurance your weekly spiritual workout. This week, we have titled the episode Under Maintenance. And we're looking at the idea of maintaining our spiritual bodies just as you need to maintain your bike or your car, you need to do regular checks to make sure that it's in good order, we need to do regular checks on our spiritual body and make sure that we are healthy. So, Steven is gonna explain this idea shortly. I'm Nathan, enjoy.

Nathan 1:03
People are like trees, they need a long time to change. So be patient. #SpeakTruth.

#GoDeeper Transcript

Steven 1:14
So, this is another GoDeeper with me, Steven, let's begin. So, in exercise, you have to do maintenance. For example, if you're a cyclist, you have to maintain your bikes, oil the chains, make sure the tire pressure is all correct, maybe tweak the gears as things get worn. Or if you're a runner, you have to sort out your trainers, if they get muddy or wet, you have to dry them out. And also in any form of exercise, you have to do some form of maintenance, for example, stretching, warm ups, cooldowns. It's not just, a runner doesn't just run, they have a warm up, they have a cooldown, perhaps do stretching.

Steven 1:50
And perhaps if they're, want to do sprinting, they might do plyometrics. If they're doing long distance, they might do weightlifting on their legs, all these sorts of things. And in the faith, it's similar. When you become a Christian, it's not, that's not it, you need to keep developing and growing. But you also need to maintain that faith. So what I mean by that is making sure that as a Christian you still function stuff, function for what God has called you to do.

Steven 2:21
The difference between growth and maintenance is growth comes from enduring trials and tribulations as we get stronger in our faith, stronger in our Endurance and whatnot. But maintenance is less exciting. It's more about functionality, making sure that we function as Christians. Like in bike maintenance, or stretching, making sure that we are able to do, in order to cycle your bike has to be functioning. Though, in order to do what God has asked us to do, we need to function as Christians.

Steven 2:52
For example, if you don't forgive someone, if there's some bitterness, then you aren't able to function properly as a Christian because bitterness is always bad for you. That'd be like cycling with a grinding chain or running with a blister, maybe. You need to maintain those things and fix them. Some interesting scripture here, James one, five. Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, ungrudgingly and it will be given to him. So, there it is putting the responsibility onto us. When we lack wisdom, we need to do something about it. We need to ask God for that wisdom. So in other words, it's asking us to assess ourselves for where improvements should be made, which is all part of maintenance.

Steven 3:42
We shouldn't rely on our church, our vicars, teachers or whatnot to make us grow. For example, if you're learning to play the piano, you don't just get lessons and leave it to your tutor or teacher. You need to actually assess where you're at, practice on your own time, maintain those skills between lessons and whatnot. Jude 1, 20 to 21 says this, But you dear friends, as you build yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting expectantly, for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life. Part of maintaining our faith is reading God's word, praying in the Holy Spirit, and keeping ourselves in the love of God. All the basic stuff of being a Christian is all there for maintenance.

Steven 4:28
Maintenance is basically assessing where you're at as a Christian, resolving any grudges or bitterness that you may have, making sure that you're always forgiving people. I think there's somewhere in the Bible it says, always keeping you're, always keeping that up to date. Because everything, every single day, things go wrong, and we have to forgive people. Perhaps people who haven't even done anything wrong we have to forgive. Make sure there's no bitterness whatsoever. And also sometimes doubts come up and those doubts will prevent us from able to function properly as a Christian. We have to overcome those doubts. And that's a daily struggle. A daily thing that we need to do, that is maintenance

Jo 5:10
So, let's pray. Andy is going to come on and show us how to pray. Excellent. What, what have you got there?

Andy 5:28
It's my world's Atlas.

Jo 5:29
Okay,

Andy 5:30
So I can pray for the world.

Jo 5:31
Okay.

Andy 5:32
You see, prayer's good

Jo 5:33
Right. Okay. You're gonna show us how to do that then.

Andy 5:35
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I've gone, I've got me atlas. And if you go to the letter A, I'm going to start here. So,

Jo 5:41
Yeah.

Andy 5:41
Please God, please bless Abenra and Archen and Arborgh.

Jo 5:48
What did you like about the story?

Dave the Dog 5:50
Bob.

Jo 5:51
Bob, you liked Bob?

Dave the Dog 5:52
And the stick. We like sticks.

Jo 5:54
You like the stick?

Dave the Dog 5:55
Me like sticks a lot I do.

Jo 5:57
Okay, well, we'll try and make sure there's more stories with sticks in, Dave, especially for you.

Nathan 6:06
Right, so that was a very good talk, Steven.

Steven 6:08
Thank you.

Nathan 6:09
Quite illuminating, on the subject of maintenance in our spiritual lives. So, are you ready for these three questions? Four.

Steven 6:18
Four? Blimey. Ready as I'll ever be.

Nathan 6:22
So, firstly, there's a scripture verse that says our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit. I suppose that is why we need to take care of our spiritual bodies as you said.

Steven 6:34
Yeah. Yeah, we need to look after our spiritual bodies as well as our physical bodies. And that Scripture is often used to talk about how we need to look after ourselves, eat the right foods, exercise, etc.

Nathan 6:45
Yeah. We have to look after what God has given us on our, for our earthly life. Okay. So are we always under maintenance? Will we always be? Or will we reach a point where we will no longer need to maintain our spiritual bodies?

Steven 7:03
Yeah, I guess we are always under maintenance until we get to the pearly gates.

Nathan 7:09
Okay.

Steven 7:11
I guess we don't do any maintenance when we get to the pearly gates, but I don't know how it works.

Nathan 7:18
You talked about bitterness and other problems we might face each day when people upset us and other problems come along. I suppose they could be allegorically represented by mud trapped in the cogs of a bicycle. Or by dirt that gets caught in a car's engine. Would you agree?

Steven 7:34
Yeah, yeah. When you don't forgive someone, how can God forgive you? That's the thing, isn't it? It slows you down. It grinds, like you were saying with the bikechain and all that.

Nathan 7:48
And bitterness always grows and grows doesn't it?

Steven 7:50
It gets worse. I think sometimes people can get physically ill as a result of bitterness, unresolved bitterness.

Nathan 7:58
And the longer you leave it the harder it is to remove just like dirt in a bicycles cogs or chain. Yeah. How do you look after your trainers?

Steven 8:07
I don't know I just put them on the rack. Dry them when they get wet. And to be honest, my trainers should, should have died by now, but they haven't they just kept going. I'm really pleased with them.

Nathan 8:26
See, I personally, I make sure I spray them with the waterproofing solution every six months, and a small amount of shoe powder every now and then to make sure that they remain clean inside and out.

Steven 8:38
Yeah, I Don't do any of that.

Nathan 8:42
Well anyway, yeah. So to conclude, I suppose we need to look after our bodies. Because if we don't, as you said, we will not function as well and we'll find ourselves unable to, unable to go through this life in the right way. Just as a bicycle if it's not well looked after, it won't function properly, you'll begin to cause damage to it, and maybe even yourself. So thank you for joining us. I hope you will join us next time and you've learned something more about how to maintain your spiritual body, how to, something more about the maintenance of our spiritual lives.

Jo 9:37
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Steven 9:50
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Nathan 9:57
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Andy 10:20
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