Have you ever really looked at a bodybuilder? If so, you can appreciate the development that comes with a fierce commitment. Whether for sport or recreation, bodybuilders do not achieve that level of fitness overnight. Nor does it take just a week, a month or even a year. Their form and strength are built over a prolonged period using a wide range of exercises and disciplines, with an intense daily focus, diligence and dedication.

Ask any bodybuilder and they will tell you that simply put, building muscle requires gradually adding to the weight lifted. To build muscle, they add to the 25-pound weight, then add to the 35-pound weight, then add to the 75-pound weight. The slow progression of additions eventually works up to as much as 225 or more pounds of weight. Not only does good bodybuilding require added weight, but they must also work each area of all the major muscle groups: arms, legs, chest, abdominals, shoulders, back and buttocks, while increasing intensity and repetition. To become well rounded and distinctly proportional, bodybuilders cannot just focus on one muscle or one area. Doing so will leave other areas of their bodies lacking and ineffective.

Faith operates the same way. Building faith muscles requires different areas of strength building in our lives. Every area of our lives requires and depends on faith building for our journey to be complete. We must submit to grow where God wants us to grow our faith. We cannot sit and exercise faith in one area of our life, or we will be out of proportion, spiritually speaking. Faith must be added to, just as weights are increased for bodybuilders.

2 Peter 1:5-9 (NIV) says “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But whoever does not have them is nearsighted and blind, forgetting that they have been cleansed from their past sins.”

We must commit to develop in our journey by allowing God full access to us in order to build a strong and unwavering partner, being fully mature and complete. Show up every day, being diligent in each and every moment, and be willing to grow in the areas that God wants our faith to grow, adding to faith the virtues required for us to be well rounded for His purpose.