Download and view the Life Group material here.

Download and view the Life Group material here.

Download and view the Life Group material here.

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Two months ago, we had a new series entitled God’s Gym.  The concept was inspired from the world famous Gold’s Gym. During the prayer and fasting last January, the Spirit impressed this series in my heart as part of a month-long campaign called Fit & Right, that is being physically fit and being right with God at the same time.

For our activities, we had the following:

Fitness Mission – Rather than the traditional medical and dental missions we opted to do a fitness mission for the public. We assessed people’s health by monitoring the body fat percentage. We had volunteer nutritionists who gave dietary advice and lastly we had fun cardio workouts every Tuesday and Friday. The main purpose of this was to engage our community.

How to Memorize Like A Genius Seminar – The church sponsored this free seminar on how to improve one’s memory.  PowerMemory normally conducts these seminars in Metro Manila for more than Php 1,000 a head but this seminar was given free of charge.  This was done for two Saturdays: one for Grade 5 to 2nd year  high school students and another of 3rd year high school to college students.  The feedback from the participants was tremendous.

God’s Gym Sunday Series – We had message series entitled God’s Gym. We made a big event out of this.  We had a customized shirt printed and the volunteers and I all wore sporty attire for the whole series. The messages are summarized below:

Get in Shape (March 8 ) –  Physically, to the extent that we are far from health standards, to the same extent we should change. Even if we have made much progress already, if we still don’t fall within healthy standards, we still need to change. Is there a spiritual counterpart for this? Yes, there is. The Bible says that we are being conformed into the image and likeness of Christ.  Christ is the standard and to the extent that we are not like Christ in our character, in our thoughts, in our words, in our relationships, then that is the extent we need to change. Spiritual fitness or maturity is a journey to Christlikeness.  Christ is perfect.  We are not, regardless of our maturity. Therefore, all of us need to change, grow and mature.

Personal Trainer (March 15) – All the top athletes have personal coaches or trainers. One big factor to physical fitness is having someone to watch over us, coach us, encourage us, correct us, show us our blind  spots. These may be mentors and even peers but it is always good to have someone push us beyond our comfort zones. That is the value of personal training and trainors. In the Bible, though we don’t see the word personal training, there is such a spiritual counterpart.  It is called discipleship. It is definitely one of the major ways God transforms us.  Therefore, we should make sure that we are undergoing the discipleship process, that we have someone life coaching us.  We can never outgrow this need.  As Jesus commanded us, we are also to disciple other people as well.  This process grows us as well.

Diet and Exercise (March 22) – The common misconception is that to get in shape, one should always eat less.  But studies nowadays show that one has to eat MORE and exercise MORE. If we just eat without exercising, we grow fat.  If we just exercise without eating enough, we lose energy and we won’t have the building blocks for our body to repair and get in better shape.  So it is spiritually.  The Bible describes God’s Word as food.  We should read, study and meditate more the Word of God. However, it does not end there.  We are to be doers of the Word if we are to mature and be spiritually fit. Eat Right; Exercise Regularly.

Resistance Training (March 29) – The way to grow our muscles is through resistance training.  This means that we continuously challenge our muscles with increasing weight or load.  This produces micro-tears in our muscles which when we rest and recover leads to muscle growth. If we carry only light loads that don’t challenge us, we don’t grow. The Book of James tells us to count in pure joy whenever we face trials of many kinds. Why? Because we become mature.  It didn’t say endure trials like they were something negative. It says to consider it pure joy.  We need to consider it. In other words, we need to think about it and look at it from a different perspective because we naturally don’t see trials as something beneficial.  Think about it. Pain is Gain!

The truth of the matter is that according to the Bible, the ones who gave gifts were magi or wise men and not kings as traditionally thought of and no number of individuals was specified in the Bible.  Traditionally, it was three because of the number of gifts and they were named Melchor, Gaspar and Baltazar but the Bible does not indicate so.  Finally, the wise men did not arrive at the manger when Jesus was born as is indicated by manger scenes. The Bible says that they arrived in a house in Jerusalem when Jesus was already a boy and no longer a babe. Based on the ages of the boys put to death by Herod based on the computations by the wise men, Jesus was probably about 2 years old.

So how then does this qualify as a Christmas message this December? Well, the message in this series is still about Who Jesus is and why He came to the world. The month doesn’t matter as much as the message. After all, Jesus really wasn’t even born in December much less December 25 but we celebrate Christmas still because it is a day of celebrating His incarnation. The day isn’t as important as that He came.

December 14 – The Gift of Gold to the Long Awaited King

December 21 – The Gift of Frankincense to the God Who is with Us

December 28 – The Gift of Myrrh to the Sacrificial Lamb of God