Pun fun aside, I’ve been thin my whole life… with two exceptions.  The first was when I was promoted to a cushy desk job; it wasn’t the fact that I literally sat at a desk the entire shift in that new role so much as the fact that said shifts lasted 10-12 hours, virtually the whole waking day.  Leaving no room for exercise.  Enough said.

Then one morning I noticed that my suit pants had gotten a bit too tight for my taste and weighed myself and it was “go time!”  Having resigned from that job and gone into business for myself weeks before, I availed myself of that newfound freedom of schedule and hit the many walking paths in the area (or the treadmill when the weather was wavering) for two or three hours every day but Sundays and, wa-la, got back down to my high school weight again.  Whew, close call.

But then it happened again.  Just recently.  That’s right, the second exception was when the trying-to-taper-but-still-going-as-I-write-this pandemic hit early last year (2020) and pretty much everything was shuttered, total lockdown for what turned into many months and I put the previous poundage back on but here’s the thing:  like before, it kinda “crept up” on me, like the frog which starts out in a pot of lukewarm water which only very slowly comes to a boil.

And it hit me that this is exactly how it is with the Christian life!  More often than not, sin “creeps up” on a believer and previously-gained ground is given back very subtly.

Another perfect parallel:  for a second time in my life I now know what it feels like to take “two steps forward, one step back” when it comes to weight management.  What it’s like to “give gained ground back” and how important and more efficient it is to (a) be aware  of that ever-present (pesky!) potential and (b) prevent  it.

• “Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished [i.e., in you, i.e., the ground gained spiritually], but that you may receive a full reward.” (2 John 8)

And back to the physical realm, I’ve learned for the second time that the best way to do this is to weigh myself every week or so (versus never  like before).  And that’s  true in the spiritual realm, too!

• “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves!” (2 Corinthians 13:5a; see also, 2 Peter 1:10)  [Spiritually speaking, the verse above says to WATCH oneself while this verse says to WEIGH oneself.]

In the physical realm I’ve taken to doing so on Saturdays, and while I’m thankful for the progress so far (around 50% of the “pandemic pounds” have been worked off) that still leaves the other half and it hit me just now on this lovely November Saturday evening that I could always just set my (analog) bathroom scale to a default setting of -15 (versus 0) and, wa-la, that would do the trick, problem solved!  But only in my mind.  Yes, it would feel good but wouldn’t actually do  any good.

This is very obvious in the physical realm but sadly it’s exactly what countless people do spiritually in trying to take a “shortcut” to salvation/heaven, to find a different route than Christ and perhaps the biggest example of this is the massive rise we’ve all seen in “virtue signaling” in recent years in particular.  As I find myself saying more and more often to those who ask, don’t let yourself get “triggered” when you observe people doing that but instead simply see it for what it actually is.  Self-righteousness.  Nothing more and nothing less.  It’s a way human nature tries to make a person feel better about one’s spiritual state / soteriological situation, spurred on by the sense of eternity God Himself has set in the human heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11) but unless a person goes through Christ (John 14:6) it’s literally no different  than if one were to set the default on their bathroom scale to -15.

Truly, totally ineffective.

Why try to do for oneself (with guaranteed failure) what Christ has already done for us (with infinite success)?

Why merely feel  good about one’s spiritual state very temporarily versus actually being  in good shape for all eternity?

I choose the latter.

I choose Christ.

Unlike the computer on which I’m currently typing, when it comes to salvation/heaven there are no shortcuts.  Or as the famous tagline in Porsche ads would put it, there is no substitute.

The solution is found in Christ alone.

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