Supplements for big gains

He argued with me with so much confidence! He was so sure, that as a 14 year old boy, it was totally safe and healthy for him to be taking large serves of his favourite pre-workout before hitting the gym every afternoon. I tried to suggest to him that this was probably not the best option for his health, nor the best option for building strength at 14 years old, but he refused to listen.

There is a culture among young men, to pursue ‘gains’ (increased muscle mass) no matter the cost to your health. Girls typically want ‘the figure’ while guys are after the ‘gains’. Pre-workout gets the heart rate up and helps you lift heavier weights, but can have a negative effect on your health when you’re young and still developing. For most adults, preworkout poses minimal risks. The alarming thing going on among adults is the use of steroids and performance enhancing drugs that men are taking just to get ‘gains’ to simply stroke their ego’s regardless of the toll it takes on their actual health.

But there are deeper issues of the heart feeding these pursuits.

Men have a desire to be seen as capable, respectable, valiant and strong; be it physically, mentally or intellectually. Men want to be seen as being dependable. Women, typically, want to be seen as beautiful, men want to be respected, and both are more than capable of leveraging their external appearance in an attempt to meet this need.

Peter writes detailed instructions to women relating to this issue, which I will cover in different article, so for now I’ll speak mostly about men, but it the application of scripture here is very much applicable to us all, male and female.

One way (not the only way) men can often attempt to pursue fulfilling this need for feeling respectable and dependable is by improving their physical appearance and strength; they go to work on themselves.

Building muscle. Making gains. Looking fit. Being strong. Building self confidence and self-esteem by transforming their physical bodies.

I get it. Many men find the gym or the sports field a place of challenge, hard work and conquest, a place to be tested and a place to prove yourself. I myself like to run and occasionally lift weights, I should probably lift more, and like most men I’m not content with the level I currently perform, I want to push myself further, get fitter, get stronger and break through my own self-imposed limitations… and apathy.

Men thrive on this stuff. But it has limitations when it comes to the formation of the heart and soul.

While there are many emotional, mental and physical benefits to getting and staying fit, the Apostle Paul said that there was something of even greater value worth pursuing, something that has a greater impact on your soul health and the level of peace and joy that resides in your heart, something that is of value in every possible way; godliness.

“…while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”
‭‭1 Timothy‬ ‭4‬:‭8‬ ‭ESV‬‬ (emphasis added)

Making gains in Godliness

If you’re a man reading this, I don’t want you to glaze over… yeh, yeh, yeh… heard this before. I want you to focus for a moment on the level of potential that Paul says lies buried within the practice of building godliness; value in EVERY way.

Paul, carried along by the All-Knowing, Omniscient Spirit of God is telling us that all when we consider all the numerous benefits we get from working out – boosting our testosterone, increasing our strength and mobility, and our range of movement and flexibility, the benefits to our mental health when all the happy chemicals are released in our brains as a byproduct of a good run or workout – despite all the benefits that come from looking good, feeling good and being fit and strong… making gains in godliness does more.

Let that sink in.

Now pause and actually consider for more than a second… Do you actually believe it?

Do you believe that investing in the development of godliness has more potential power to bless and enhance your life more than physical health, fitness and strength?

Paul says that godliness holds promise for the present life and the life to come. This is HUGE! It’s not just that godliness is good for the life to come, as some kind of means-to-an-end, but godliness holds promise for us in the here and now!

In. Every. Way.

Now, some men don’t work out or exercise at all, and I’d be quick to suggest that’s not good stewardship of the temple of God you body became when you accepted Christ. Some of us eat a lot of unhealthy foods and, or, live sedentary lifestyles, and the “lifestyle” diseases that follow aren’t pretty. So yes, work out. Yes, exercise. Yes, take care of your physical body for it holds much value.

However… making gains in godliness is by far a more superior and honourable pursuit, with greater value and promise of being beneficial to your whole life as it cultivates the garden of your heart and soul.

Supplements are a must!

Health supplements are very common these days, simply because most people are not getting the kind of wholistic nutrition their bodies need through diet alone; they need supplements to pad out the menu, even if they’re eating ‘healthy’.

The need for supplements increases if we have specific health or fitness goals; pre-workout stimulates us so we can hit the gym harder and lift more, salt tablets and electrolytes help endurance athletes ward off exhaustion, while others are taking various minerals and vitamins to make up for any deficits they might have in their diet. I regularly take Omega-3, Vitamin C, and a few other things for overall heart health & and strong immunity.

Supplements are designed to improve, not replace, our baseline health.

We are saved, not by works, not by own godliness or performance but by faith in the finished work of Jesus, through his death and resurrection. Our confession of sin, and declaration of Jesus as our resurrected Lord brings us into the grace and forgiveness of God. We are saved by rebirth, not hard work.

This faith, this saving grace at work in our lives, is our baseline of spiritual health. And it’s this very faith-in-God that needs to be supplemented and strengthened. There are certain deficiencies in our faith, certain limitations that ‘believing and confessing’ alone won’t overcome, and this is by design. God, in his wisdom, has made the nature of faith something that can be improved, strengthened and built up, and we do this with supplements. The difference, however, is that unlike the ease of taking tablets to fill gaps in your diet, supplementing your faith is not quite so easy. It takes hard work.

After describing the glory and majesty of being called by God to partake in the divine nature, through faith in Christ and the beyond-imagination promises He’s given us, the great apostle Peter instructs Christians spread out across the Dispersion to get serious about building and strengthening their faith:

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”
‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭1‬:‭5‬-‭10‬ ‭ESV‬‬ (emphasis added)

Is it even that big of a deal? Um… yeh

Before I jump into a discussion about these qualities, these supplements, let’s first consider the level of necessity being placed upon us by Peter. Make no mistake, this list of supplements is not a suggestion. Look closely at the cost of neglecting Peter’s directive; whoever lacks these qualities has forgotten they were saved.

Those who forget they are saved will live as though they are not: not only will they fall back into habits of sinful living, but they will abandon peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, embracing anxiety, sadness, depression, insecurity, fear and doubt. Their mental life will suffer, their soul with be darkened and their external world will slide back into the chaos from which Christ rescued them from in the first place.

Peter puts it much more bluntly; “They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.””
‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭2‬:‭19‬-‭22‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Such a person will be unfruitful in the knowledge of Christ, much like the fig tree that Jesus cursed, they will stand before their maker with no fruit to please him. In John 15 Jesus teaches his disciples emphatically that the only way a Christian can be spiritually fruitless is if they become severed from Him;

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned.”
‭‭John‬ ‭15‬:‭4‬-‭6‬ ‭ESV‬‬ (emphasis added)

The good news, however, is inescapable! Those who remain in Him will enivitably, without fail, produce fruit! The knowledge of Christ will bear fruit in that person’s life. The alternative is a stark warning; those who are disconnected, like a branch cut off from the vine, will end up fruitless in their knowledge of Christ, their life withering away.

Supplementing your faith helps to keep you grafted to Christ, strengthening your bond to his life flowing in and through you. This is one of the ways we ‘cling to Christ’. So, is making every effort to supplement your faith really necessary? Yeh… Yeh it is.

So what are these supplements, these characteristics and qualities that will serve us so well as we intentionally work hard to develop them in our lives?

Supplement you life with:

• VIRTUE: ἀρέτη arĕtē – in most biblical uses, this word typically means virtue in relation to morality. Having moral values and practices that reflect the nature and character of Christ. However, in non-biblical sources, this word in Greek literature was often associated with a general sense of Manliness, Valor and Courage, such as in Homer’s writings. To a Greek, being a man of Virtue meant combing in the masculine attributes of strength with the spiritual attributes of godly morals. A Greek man would be suspicious of any man claiming to be virtuous, if they were not also strong and capable of courage and nobility. Similarly, they would be equally suspicious of any man claiming to have noble virtue, if their strength was used for selfish gain or low moral behaviour. Virtue, in the ancient world was the combination of external strength with pious self control. Perhaps this is why we need to make every effort to supplement our faith, for such supplements require a great deal of effort, both in training and practice.
• KNOWLEDGE: γνῶσις gnōsis – this word is has less layers to it than ‘virtue’ and it much more straight forward, it literally means knowledge; simply put, don’t be ignorant of the world or the ways of God. Learn! Get knowledge! The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction (Proverbs 1:7) Be teachable, commit to the lifelong posture of being a student, a disciple of Jesus who fears God and loves the knowledge that comes from Him. Reject ignorance and blind faith alike, faith is not blindness but belief based on reasonable evidence. Commit to supplementing your faith with knowledge. Just do a quick word search through the book of Proverbs to see how highly knowledge is valued among the wise! Or simply consider the words of the prophet Hosea, My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
  because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being Priest to me’ (Hosea 4:6)
• SELF-CONTROL: ἐγκράτεια ĕgkratĕia – he who has self-control is one who has mastery over the passions and desires of their flesh, and over their temperament (i.e. not driven by emotional reactions). Such a person is able top reign in their appetites and lives with peaceful contentment in any and all situations, while also being perfect in speech (James 3). Sounds impossible! Na without the Spirit of God, it certainly is impossible, but this is exactly why the Lord has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power and self-control (2 Timothy 1:7). When we are ‘in the spirit’ and not in the flesh, we are able to operate with supernatural self-control. A man or woman who has such self-control is not given to outbursts of anger or rage, they do not cut others down with their words, they resist paying back evil with evil, and are not given to addictive behaviours. This quality is developed through fasting, intentionally denying and controlling the urges and appetites of the body in order to exercise the muscle of self-control (1 Cor 7:9, 9:25; Gen 43:31).
• STEADFASTNESS: ὑπομονή hupŏmŏnē – often described as cheerful, patience, endurance. It’s not enough to endure through gritted teeth and a bitter soul, we are called to develop perseverance without abandoning joy and gratitude. To do all you can do to stand, and then simply continue to to stand (EPh 6:13) is endurance, but to endure with authentic joy, cheerfulness, and patience, which is love, is godly steadfastness. Once again, another characteristic of the soul that takes a lifetime of work to produce and refine, and another characteristic that promises to yield the fruit union with Christ. Consider the words of James, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
  ‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭2‬-‭4‬ ‭ESV‬‬ (emphasis added) – Steadfastness, which is only produced through circumstances that require grit and determination, is the key to deepening maturity and perfection as a follower of Jesus, so that you may lack nothing and bear an abundance of fruit!
• GODLINESS: εὐσέβεια ĕusĕbĕia – This is more than being ‘good’ for true godliness involves having both the appropriate doctrinal beliefs, and the routine behaviours and practices that demonstrate that belief. One cannot have godly behaviour if one has wrong beliefs about God or themselves. Thus, godliness is tied to knowledge, for those ignorant of the things of God are hardly likely to produce godly lives of Christian piety and holiness. What we’re really talking about is a lifestyle of worship and devotion to Christ, seen in how someone lives and speaks, according to the beliefs held in their heart and mind (James 1:26; 1 Tim 2:10, 3:16). in almost all of the epistles the issue of suitable Christian behaviour is addressed, pointing out what godliness should look and sound like – putting the flesh to death and living lives of moral excellence and holiness, flowing not from an attempt to twist God’s arm into accepting you, but rather true godliness flows out of the experience of salvation and the fear of the Lord; it’s out response to being accepted in the beloved.
• BROTHERLY AFFECTION: φιλάδελφος philadĕlphŏs – Fraternal love, the love of a brother or sibling. This is more loyal than the love of friends, it is not romantic or sexual, and is different to the unique God-type of love (Agape). It describes the kind of affection, warmth and sincerity that other believers should receive from us. Do you clash with other believers? Do you avoid people at church? Are you warm to some yet turn a cold shoulder to others? Can sweet and salt water flow from the same spring? This quality also means that we reserve a special place in our hearts for believers. Yes, we are called to love the world and share the father’s love with the world, but we are called to show a unique, almost exclusive love toward other Christian brothers and sisters, hence Paul says in Galatians 6:10, “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Emphasis added).
• LOVE: ἀγάπη agapē – Interesting that we are called to brotherly love, then also to love! This agape is divine, benevolent, love. In a pagan world drowning in Eros, sexual exploits, Christians developed the concept of a transcendent love, of hyper sacrificial and others-focused love; agape. This is the love that God has for the world (John 3:16), the kind of love that motivated Christ to go to the cross. This is the love we are to carry into the world, to broken people, hurting people, fearful and rejected people. We are to show the world that the highest form of love is not Eros, but Agape, Jesus-kind of love. Since this s the kind of love God loves with, it will require a continuous journey to the cross and the death of self for our hearts to develop and live from agape more and more, thank God we have been given the Helper!
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When we consider the nature of love, all these qualities really are just difference facets, or expressions, of love (1 Cor 13), and to neglect the cultivation of these traits is to leave our faith weakened and in danger of faltering. Another way of looking at it is to consider, can we grow in faith without simultaneously increasing in our capacity to love? I don’t think so, for if we know all prophetic mysteries, speak in the tongues of angels and can do mighty exploits of faith, but have not love, we are nothing (1 Cor 13). In fact, Jesus said that it was not our ‘faith’ that will mark as authentic disciples, but our love for each other (John 13:35).

Our faith in Jesus needs to be supplemented with a lifestyle of love-in-action. You have faith? Good! Even the demons believe in God, says James, but show me your faith without works and I will show you my faith by what I do (James 2:18). In fact, the entire 2nd chapter of James is about this very topic – your faith and mine, must be capable of being observed and measured in the actions of our daily lives, after all, no one lights a lamp only to put it under a bucket (Matthew 5:15).

We need to become the Good Samaritan and not just be church-goers like the priest and Levite who overlook the physical needs of those around us (Luke 10:25-37).

We need to give a cup of water to the thirsty and clothe the naked, for in doing so we do it unto Christ (Matthew 25:6).

These practices, of what some might label ‘religious duty’, are like lifting weights. These actions are the resistance our pride and ego is broken by, as we exercise our faith and demonstrate the reality of our transformed hearts and minds. These actions supplement our faith, strengthen our faith and keep us from being unproductive and unfruitful in the experience and knowledge of Jesus Christ the resurrected Lord.

Training the body is incredibly valuable, training yourself in godliness has value in every way, for this life and the one that follows.

Planning isn’t usually a ‘spiritual’ word

I am hoping to run a marathon later this year before I turn 40. It’s an ambitious goal, and it requires a training plan. I can’t haphazardly ‘get prepped’ for a marathon. I can’t do a few short runs and then just ‘run a marathon’. No, I need to think and plan ahead, I need to build up muscle and flexibility, especially since injuring my hamstring earlier this year. I need to increase my aerobic fitness, improve my VO2 Max rating and strengthen my heart so I can work harder, for longer. If something as trivial as working towards a marathon takes time, planning, dedication and resilience, how much more must we be vigilant to plan for and monitor our commitment to supplementing our faith? Run your race to win, says Paul (1 Cor 9:24), and if you’re going to win, you’re going to need a training plan.

John Mark Comer’s book, ‘Practicing the Way’ has some great insights and suggestions on where you might like to start.

How do you monitor your progress? No, we’re not monitoring for pride, so we can share our stats and boast on the street corner like a Pharisee, but we monitor what we want to see progress in. how else can we know we’re making progress? Am I growing? Is self-control increasing, is knowledge deepening, is virtue more obvious to those closest to you?

What conversations are you having with other like-minded Jesus followers to help you monitor and strengthen your supplements?

In 2, 3, 5, or 10 years time, how will you know if you’ve made gains?

I would suggest that supplementing our faith is perhaps more important than we’ve previously considered; for if these qualities [of Virtue, Knowledge, Self-Control, Steadfastness, Godliness, Brotherly Affection, and Love] are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall.”

Not all practices lead to the blessing of God, but all practices do, over time, yield a result of some description. Hence, practice doesn’t make perfect; practice makes permanent. May we choose wisely what daily, weekly, monthly and annual practices we will supplement our faith with, amen.