Being "Sore" for the Lord

If you know me you know that I love to exercise and get a good workout! The best workouts are when two days later you discover a muscle you didn't even know you had because it is so sore! You worked that muscle so hard and you have evidence of your hard work even days later. To me it's kind of the same with our service to the Lord. When we labor and stretch ourselves for the Lord we feel it! When we give our all to Him in everything we do and don't just keep within our comfort zone our 'muscles' for the Lord become sore; but it's a good sore. I don't know about you, but I like to be sore after a workout. It tells me that I didn't waste my time and that it was well worth it. It also tells me that I stepped out of my comfort zone and really pushed myself. If I don't even get a bit sore the next day I tell myself I need to do a more strenuous workout next time because my body is getting used to that level of activity. It's like that in our Christian life sometimes: If we do just enough to get by or never step out of our comfort zone we will never get "sore". Are you stretching yourself for the Lord? Or are you doing just enough so that you can tell yourself that you are okay? Compared to what Jesus has done for us, our service to Him is just a drop in the bucket. May we workout our 'muscles' for the Lord in our service to Him for His glory. Just like when you need to up your weight during an exercise or maybe do more repititions for another, we need to up our service for Christ. We need to add more weight, more repititions. Let us run the race with endurance, press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.