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We know consistent physical exercise keeps our body fit and contributes to our overall well-being. And we also know mental exercise like reading and solving crossword puzzles helps our mind stay sharp.
But did you know that as Christians, we need an additional kind of exercise? For a healthy Christian life, we need spiritual exercise.
So what do we mean when we say spiritual exercise? We simply mean the exercise of our spirit.
God created us with a body to contact the physical realm, a soul to contact the psychological realm, and a spirit to contact the spiritual realm. Our human spirit, the deepest part of our being, has the unique ability to contact and receive God.
When we first believed in Jesus Christ, we were born of the Spirit. The Lord as the life-giving Spirit came into and was mingled with our spirit. After we’re born again, our Christian life is a life of continuously contacting the Lord, fellowshipping with Him, receiving more of Him, and living by Him.
We can contact the Lord by exercising, or using, our spirit, as John 4:24 tells us: “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit.” Because God is Spirit, we must worship Him in our spirit—our deepest part, where Christ now lives. Our spirit is the key to our relationship with God. Using our spirit is the God-designed way for us to fellowship with Him, know Him, and experience Him.
In terms of physical exercise, we’re all familiar with the expression use it or lose it. For example, if we stop using a particular muscle, that muscle becomes weaker, and eventually will atrophy. This abnormal condition is the result of neglecting to exercise that muscle. To be strong and healthy, we need to use our muscles.
In the same way, if we don’t exercise our spirit to contact the Lord and fellowship with Him, our spiritual health inevitably suffers. The less we exercise our spirit, the weaker we become. As a result, we’re more prone to sin, the temptations of the world, and other spiritual “ailments.” How can we be healthy—much less grow in the Lord—if we aren’t regularly contacting Him by exercising our spirit?
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Actually, physical exercise benefits us most when it becomes a habit. The same is true of spiritual exercise. But we can’t build up a habit of using our spirit if we only contact the Lord when we’re met with major problems. Exercising our spirit benefits us most when it’s part of our daily life and not a special event or something that we do at isolated times.
And with any kind of exercise, some effort and deliberate action is required. For example, we don’t usually wake up eager to go for a run. Sometimes we have to exert ourselves just to get our running shoes on. Once we take the deliberate action to get started, we’re soon out the door and on our way.
Using our spirit in our daily walk doesn’t come naturally to us, and sometimes it’s even difficult. It’s a lot easier to stay in our anxious thoughts or unhappy feelings when we’re worried or upset. But that’s the perfect time for us to exercise our spirit, to actively and deliberately turn to the Lord to contact Him and receive more of Him right in the middle of our situation.
Though there are numerous forms of spiritual exercise, today we’ll discuss five ways:
The best way to exercise our spirit is by praying. We may assume the right way to pray is to compose a formal prayer while we’re in a particular place. But we actually can exercise our spirit at any moment, in any place, to speak to the Lord in prayer about anything and everything. In this way, we contact Him in our spirit and receive more of Him.
Calling on the name of the Lord is a great way to exercise our spirit. To call on the Lord is simply to call His name, “Lord Jesus, oh, Lord Jesus.” When we call on Him even just for a little while, we’re brought to Him in our spirit. By calling on Him, we’re refreshed and supplied with more of His life.
Pray-reading, which is simply to read and pray over the words of the Bible, is an excellent way to exercise our spirit. As we read God’s Word, we can turn what we read into our prayer to the Lord.
Let’s use Matthew 4:4 as an example: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God.” We can pray with these words like this: “Lord, man shall not live on bread alone. Thank You, Lord, I do not live on bread alone, but on every word out of Your mouth. Thank You, Lord, for every word! Cause me to hunger for Your Word.”
Pray-reading the Word of God is good exercise for our spirit and nourishes us. Starting our day with this kind of exercise helps us be spiritually fit.
An enjoyable way to exercise our spirit is singing to the Lord. If we feel tired and unhappy when we wake up, singing helps us shake off our sleepiness, brightens our mood, and turns us to the Lord. It activates our spirit and enriches our enjoyment of the Lord.
Throughout the day we can exercise our spirit by singing a hymn or a short song to the Lord. For instance, we can learn and sing this song about Emmanuel to the Lord and be reminded that He is with our spirit.
We can also exercise our spirit by thanking the Lord. We can thank Him for saving us, living in us, taking care of us, growing in us, and for everything that happens in our lives. Thanking the Lord, even for small things, makes a big difference in our life. The more we practice thanking Him, the more uplifted and supplied we are.
Notice how these ways involve opening our mouth. Instead of staying silent and locked up in our thoughts and feelings, opening our mouth really helps us to exercise our spirit. As we pray, call, sing, pray-read, and thank the Lord aloud, we contact, receive, and enjoy the Lord.
Let’s all build up a daily habit of exercising our spirit so we can be healthy in our spiritual life and grow in Christ.
If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
We hope you enjoy this BfA staff member’s testimony of learning how to touch the Lord.
As a child, the Bible was a mysterious book to me because I didn’t have much exposure to it. I think we had a family Bible somewhere in the house, but I can’t remember ever picking it up and reading it.
All I knew about the Bible was that it was a book religious people referred to, and like most Americans, I was familiar with a few stories about Jesus, such as how He was born and how He died. But I dismissed the Bible as irrelevant and out of date.
Until one day!
A friend and I were walking down the street when two young men stopped us to talk about Jesus. At first I was contentious, thinking I knew what they were going to say. But after a few minutes, I was disarmed by a penetrating gospel I had never heard before. I received the Lord Jesus as my Savior that very hour.
The next day I met up with the same Christian brothers and their wives and children at a nearby park. They showed me verses in the Bible to help me understand more about my spiritual birth and how to go on as a believer in Christ. Knowing everything was new to me, they gave me some booklets to read at home.
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I’ll never forget the first booklet I read: A Simple Way to Touch the Lord by Witness Lee. It was astounding! It answered my burning questions in a clear and thorough way. The Lord knew the things I was wondering about and personally spoke to me through every word.
This portion of the booklet helped me immensely through those first crucial days as a believer:
“How can we touch and experience Christ in a practical way as our very life moment by moment? The Lord has given us a simple way. All we have to do is call upon Him, and we will touch Him who is the life-giving supply.”
The booklet didn’t tell me that the next step after I received the Lord Jesus was for me to improve my behavior or work for God. Instead, it gave me a way to touch the God of the universe! Further on in this gem of a booklet, I was attracted by these words:
“When we believed into Him, He as the Spirit came into our spirit, the deepest part of our being, to be our life and everything to us. Today, He as the Spirit is like the air to us—so fresh and so available. When we cry ‘Lord!’ or ‘Amen!’ or ‘Hallelujah!’ we take Him into us as the life-giving breath, supplying us with all the riches of Himself.”
I had never dreamed God could be available to me, just like the air, and that I could breathe Him in. All these statements were based on verses in the Bible, which had suddenly become alive to me. The booklet explained that in John 20:21, the resurrected Lord appeared in the closed room where the disciples were gathered and spoke a comforting word to them, “Peace be to you.” Verse 22 says,
“And when He had said this, He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.”
As I continued to read, my eyes were opened. I saw that the only way He could live in the disciples was to change His physical form and become the Spirit, as clearly stated in 1 Corinthians 15:45: “The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.”
Formerly He was among the disciples, talking to them, and traveling with them in His earthly body. But in resurrection, He became the Spirit who could enter into them. And when I was saved, He came into me.
As marvelous as this realization was, I didn’t experience His being the life-giving Spirit in me until I learned how to touch Him in my spirit. The words in Romans 10:12-13 jumped off the page:
“For the same Lord is Lord of all and rich to all who call upon Him; for ‘whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”
I was so happy to know I was not only saved and that the Lord Jesus lived in me, but that I could also experience Christ and His salvation every time I call on His name. And it wasn’t complicated or hard to do. It indeed was simple, but I felt like I had made a profound discovery.
One portion at the end of the booklet gives some excellent advice:
“From deep within just breathe, ‘O Lord,’ ‘Amen,’ ‘Hallelujah,’ and you will taste the sweetness and reality of Christ Himself. You will begin to realize more and more that His life is truly a saving life.”
Since I discovered in my late teens how to touch the Lord, many years of breathing in the Lord and calling on His name have gone by. By this simple way, I can testify that I’ve experienced Christ saving me and being rich to me in countless ways!
I’m so happy that this same booklet is included as chapter two in Basic Elements of the Christian Life, vol. 2, and you can find the excerpts above on pages 15 and 18. You can download this book from anywhere in the world here.
If you live in the US, you can order a free New Testament Recovery Version here.
When we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, some marvelous things happened to us. We were justified by God, forgiven of our sins, and saved from perdition. How we praise God for these wonderful gifts!
But as wonderful as each of these is, something more happened when we received Christ: a union and mingling of God’s divine Spirit with our human spirit. This is a profound fact that we can enjoy today in our daily experience.
Three Bible verses put the divine Spirit and the human spirit together, and each for a particular reason.
“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
This verse mentions two spirits—a capital “S” Spirit and a lowercase “s” spirit. What are these two? Note 2 on this verse in the Recovery Version says this:
“The first Spirit mentioned here is the divine Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, and the second spirit is the human spirit, the regenerated spirit of man. Regeneration is accomplished in the human spirit by the Holy Spirit of God with God’s life, the uncreated eternal life. Thus, to be regenerated is to have the divine, eternal life (in addition to the human, natural life) as the new source and new element of a new person.”
In putting these two spirits together, this verse speaks of our divine birth. So our experience of the two spirits begins when we believe in Christ and are born again.
“The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.”
Here again we see the two spirits together—the capital “S” Spirit is “the Spirit Himself,” the divine Spirit of God, and the lowercase “s” spirit is “our spirit,” our human spirit.
This verse shows us something very sweet and comforting in our experience of the two spirits. At the moment we believe, the Spirit Himself enters into our spirit and witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.
And we can continue to experience this witnessing throughout our Christian life. We just open our mouth and declare,
“I’ve received the Lord Jesus as my Savior and Lord, and I am born of the Spirit in my spirit! I am a child of God!”
While we’re making such a declaration, something wonderful happens deep inside of us. The Spirit who resides in our spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God. As a result, we have a sweet sensation within that God is our dear Father, and that we are born of Him. This witnessing is an inward proof of our salvation, assuring us that we are truly saved.
“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.”
Notice once again the capital “S” Spirit, referring to God, and the lowercase “s” spirit, referring to our human spirit. The Lord’s word here has to do with our worshipping God. We may have our own different ideas about how to worship God, but this verse clearly tells us that true worship involves our spirit.
Note 3 on John 4:24 explains why:
“This word was given to instruct the Samaritan woman regarding her need to exercise her spirit to contact God the Spirit. To contact God the Spirit with the spirit is to drink of the living water, and to drink of the living water is to render real worship to God.”
As believers, our basic need is to enjoy Him and receive Him as our divine supply, our living water. To do this, we need to exercise our spirit to contact God who is Spirit. As we contact Him, we drink of the living water and are refreshed and revived. This is the real worship God desires of us.
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For those who believe in Christ, these two spirits are not separate, but are united and mingled together as one.
In 1 Corinthians 6:17, Paul said,
“But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”
By this verse we can see that the two spirits are mingled together as “one spirit.” This doesn’t mean a loss of distinction occurs between the two. The Spirit is still the divine Spirit and our human spirit is still our human spirit, but they are united as one. For example, hot tea is a single beverage, but with two distinct ingredients. When we brew tea with water, neither the tea nor the water loses its distinct identity. But brewed together, the two are mingled together as one.
Note 2 in the Recovery Version on “one spirit” says:
“This indicates the mingling of the Lord as the Spirit with our spirit. Our spirit has been regenerated by the Spirit of God (John 3:6), who is now in us (v. 19) and is one with our spirit (Rom. 8:16). This is the realization of the Lord, who became the life-giving Spirit through resurrection (15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17) and who is now with our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). This mingled spirit is often referred to in Paul’s Epistles, e.g., in Rom. 8:4-6.”
The divine Spirit and our human spirit are made one. This is truly something profound, and yet so experiential!
The main way we can exercise our spirit is by prayer. Just as we exercise our feet by walking, we exercise our spirit by praying. As we pray, even in a simple way, we exercise our spirit and contact God.
But at times we may become very complicated when we pray. Or, we’re in a situation where we cannot stop and go off somewhere to pray. So sometimes the simplest way to exercise our spirit is by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus. We can call on Him anytime and anywhere.
In 1 Corinthians 12:3 Paul said,
“No one can say, Jesus is Lord! except in the Holy Spirit.”
So when we call on the Lord’s name, we’re in His Spirit, and we enjoy our union with Him.
To call on the Lord isn’t just to casually say the name of Jesus, without any feeling. It’s to cry out to Him from deep within, to call out to the Lord Jesus audibly. We can even take a moment right now to practice calling on the Lord from the depths of our being:
“Lord Jesus! Lord Jesus! Oh Lord, I need You. Lord, I love You. Oh Lord Jesus, I open to You.”
