Did you set a latest 12 months’s resolution this 12 months? Chances are, the resolution was focused on improving yourself. According to YouGov, exercise stays resoundingly the highest ‘self-betterment’ goal. As a self-confessed fitness-fanatic myself, I get this: the structure, consistency, and community offered by the gym helps me in so some ways. But how does this fit with the Christian life? Is growing in my faith like going to the gym?
Fitness and discipleship
At first glance, the Bible does draw parallels between faith and fitness. Paul speaks of “training in godliness” (1 Timothy 4:7–8), acknowledging that physical training has value, but using it as an image for something far greater: a life shaped by reverence for God and lived with Him on the centre.
Yet while faith and fitness may look similar on the surface, each involving discipline, values, and community, their foundations are different. In fitness, change will depend on our own effort. In the Christian life, we start with empty hands, unable to save lots of or transform ourselves. New life comes as a present of grace from God.
Still, this grace doesn’t result in passivity. We are called to coach in godliness as a lifelong journey: learning, failing, and starting again. But we achieve this in partnership with the Holy Spirit, trusting that the start line, the facility, and the ultimate goal are already secured in Christ.
The illusion of control
At the gym, all of us too easily fall into an illusion of control. For that hour or two, we are able to structure life as we wish it. We can deal with the moment. We can consider we’re the masters of our own bodies. Of course, it is clear even within the gym that we are usually not really in charge. An unexpected injury trips us up and keeps us out of motion, a change of job means we not have the energy we once did. We by chance lie-in and miss our morning session. We can feel a way of failure, and an absence of joy after we fail to satisfy the ever-growing expectations we set for ourselves.
But as Christians, we lay down the burden of control. God knows the top from the start and holds our future secure. Through Jesus, He has given us a living hope and an inheritance that can never fade or fail.
We love fitness since it gives us a way of control through discipline and community …until something reminds us how fragile that control really is. We can often treat our Christian faith the identical way, assuming it runs on performance and energy, and fearing it’s going to steal our freedom.
In fact, the other is true. The gospel is built on grace. It leads to not loss, but to true freedom, and to a deep, inexpressible joy, even when life is difficult.
Talking in regards to the big questions of life within the gym
So as an alternative of treating faith like fitness, why not see fitness as a spot to live and share your faith? Physical training has value, but godliness has far greater value, now and for eternity.
The gym creates natural connection; shared intensity in figuring out together builds trust and opens real conversations. I’ve often found more openness and curiosity about faith there than anywhere else, especially in a time where we’re seeing an increased interest in Christianity, particularly amongst Gen Z.
We talk quite a bit about our “why” in fitness – health, strength, recovery, or maintaining with life. But within the Bible we discover a far greater “why”: God’s story of redemption and renewal, larger than ourselves and open to all.
For me, that is where fitness ends and faith truly begins, and what a joy it’s to share that hope, purpose, and identity with those around us, especially within the places we already belong.
Simon Lennox is the CEO of The Word One to One, a ministry with a mission to construct confidence in God’s Word and Spirit for on a regular basis evangelism.
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