FAITH
It can be difficult to make time to pray, but making the time to pray is important, and we have suggestions for how you can start or stay prayerful. Join our cause to connect faith with fitness training! We are Masters in what we do, and have dedicated our entire lives to staying connected to the Church. God has revealed to us a physical, mental, and spiritual peace we want to share with you!
FAITHFUL INSPIRATION
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Want to know how to climb the faith ladder? It’s simple. The White Rung starts with basic information and each rung of the ladder helps you to grow towards the Black Rung where you will have a deep understanding of Faith. Each rung has content like videos, blogs, or images that help you to grow closer to God.
Learn ABOUT how FAITH CAN HELP YOU REACH YOUR heavenly GOALS!
1. CHURCH
Church-What is Church to you?
The Orthodox Church, as an example, is an Apostolic Church that has its traditions and services based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and the scripture he revealed to His apostles. These traditions have been passed down from apostolic generation to generation from the first 12 apostles, like Peter and his brother Andrew, to the present day hierarchs of the Church. At this rung, we ask you to think about what Church is to you and to choose to go to Church from your heart. The church is a foundation to build faith on, and so on this rung, we do foundational training.
2. SERVICES / WORSHIP / EVENTS / CALENDAR
Now that you have thought about what Church is to you, we ask you to know what services are offered at Church. Obtain a Church calendar and know what websites or apps are available to you. This will allow you to participate in some aspects of Church life such as Worship, Events, Music, Outreach, etc. At this rung, you need to learn to be flexible and make time for Church, so we add flexibility training.
3. biblical-DAILY BREAD ROUTINE
At this rung of the ladder, we ask that you open your Bible on your own and develop a daily prayer routine. For example, morning prayers or evening prayers or both every day. The Bible is God's word and the core of the Church, so we ask that you own a Bible (hard copy or electronic) and read and receive His daily bread every day. At this rung, we work on daily routines and specific core work including the daily readings/Gospel.
4. READ INTRO TO EACH BOOK OF THE HOLY BIBLE
At this rung, we want you to understand what books are in the Old Testament and the New Testament. We suggest reading (or listening to) the introduction to each book of the Bible to get an overall understanding of the book and its author and theme. As we get more specific in the faith rung, we start to focus on specific muscle groups and targeted fitness training.
5. DEEPER PRAYER AND FASTING
At this rung of the ladder, we ask that you increase your prayer time and focus on what food you are putting into your body so you can reflect on your fasting goals. This rung starts your intermediate fitness training.
6. CHURCH HISTORY / BIBLICAL GEOGRAPHY
At this rung, we ask you to become more comfortable with Church history and biblical geography. For example, Jesus spoke to a woman at a well. What was the well called? Where was it located? What was the woman's name? What was Jesus's message to her? At this rung, we challenge you to do a spiritual self-assessment to measure your progress since you started.
7. LISTENING
How is your listening? At the service to the sermon? At home with family? Do you do all the talking, or do you let God get a word in when you pray? Do you listen for His word? Are you quieting yourself to hear Him? At this rung, we want you to listen to your body and do more specific body conditioning fitness.
8. SERVICE
Are you serving others, or is it all about you? What are you doing to serve others? We ask that you have some form of service included in your daily, weekly, or monthly life. At this rung, advanced fitness training is encouraged.
9. WITNESS
At this rung, you are ready to be a witness to others by expressing yourself and your faith. This doesn’t mean you should wait for people to stop talking, then you preach! This means you see others as children of God and strive to be comfortable with talking about your faith with your brothers and sisters, even if they don’t agree with all your beliefs. You may have to agree to disagree, but it is important to do this in a loving way and look for healing and unity rather than hatred and division. At this rung, make sure to create your own workouts and challenge yourself at an advanced level.
10. love
At this rung, your goal is to live a faith-filled life as best you can every day. By now you should love your fitness results and be a more prayerful person. We ask you to realize Jesus could come again at any time, but until then, we are supposed to keep training in faith, fitness, and wellness. It’s important to understand what martial fitness you enjoy and what training works for you. This understanding will help you maintain and make new fitness and wellness goals. Your new journey towards a master's level of faith begins now, and we invite you to keep doing the specific exercises that work for you and challenge yourself by continuing a journey towards mastering Christian Martial Fitness!
As a Christian Martial Fitness Master, we feel you become love and relate it to scripture.
In St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13, verses 4-8, we replace the word “love” with “a Master,” and this is what we strive for.
Based on 1Cr 13:4-8, replacing the word” love” with “a Master” is as follows:
4 A Master suffers long and is kind; a Master does not envy; a Master does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 A Master never fails.
To keep us focused on being CMF Masters of Love, we practice our Church’s teachings and the two golden rules, then combine them in both our logo and our school’s symbol of faith.
Our CMF logo and faith symbol are both based on a symbol that you may recognize from Church pulpits and Bible covers. In the Church's symbol and on the CMF logo and faith symbol, the overlapping Greek letters “Χ” (Chi) and “Ρ” (Rho) represent Christ. The CMF logo is black to represent our Black Belt training efforts. We put the green kicker symbol overlapping the Chi/Rho letters to represent our CMF goal of keeping Christ in the center of our training efforts and lives. It reminds us that our relationship with Him takes effort and should have a natural balance.
Our CMF Faith Symbol adds the “A” (Alpha) and the “Ω” (Omega) symbols to encourage our students to continually read the Bible and think of God as the one who is, was, and ever shall be. We also teach that CMF Masters should be Masters of Love. This is why we include two golden bars to the symbol, one in the bottom left corner and the other in the upper right corner. These two golden bars represent the two golden rules of love that Jesus gave to all of us.
From MT 22: 37-39 The first and Great commandment “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
“And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
So when our students and clients see our CMF logo and CMF faith symbol, we hope to encourage them all to hear their calling from God, sing in Church, participate in service outreach, and maybe even get a degree in Ministry, Theology, or Divinity. We want everyone to stay focused on becoming Masters of Love, always growing closer to God and serving and loving their neighbor.
LEARN MORE ABOUT FAITH
This question can be applied to anything. Take a moment to access where you are in all aspects of your life. Being halfway through Lent at this point it's time for me to crack down and see where my distractions and temptations are.