Good morning and a most blessed Thursday to you. Do you ever go through those seasons where you don't exercise as much as you would like to or pretend that you would like to? And then you try a workout and your muscles are so sore because you haven't used them in a particular way for a while. And yet you push through the pain, comfortably uncomfortable. You push through and you do another workout, maybe the next day or the next day, and you keep building the strength of your muscles, and you continue to grow stronger and stronger with each workout. Well, we also grow stronger and stronger in the Lord. We grow stronger and stronger in the faith that he has given us. And, how do we do that? Well, just like we, practice with exercise to make our bodies stronger. We practice with engaging with the Lord to make our faith lives richer and stronger and to grow in His Word. And we do that by reading His Word, by engaging with His Word. And he in turn engages with us and he draws us closer and he reveals Himself to us. And we are strengthened in spirit because it's his own Spirit that is within us.

And we're exercising that faith muscle. I know there's not a faith muscle, but we're going to say that for this analogy. We're growing that faith, strengthening that faith muscle for our lives. And so we practice. It doesn't mean that you sit down in one sitting and read the entire Bible all the way through. That is difficult. That is not a beginner's exercise. But you open the Bible and you read a few verses, you think about those verses, you pray about those verses, and what God is saying to you in those verses. You begin with of the Gospels, where you get to know Jesus and you get to know the Son of God and all that he has done for you, namely, that he has lived a righteous life and died a horrendous death. But in that horrendous death, he took your sin and my sin upon Himself, and then he rose triumphant.

And we think about that and we ponder that, and we pray on that, and we practice turning to the Lord in prayer. Our faith lives because of our sin. Our faith lives will never be perfect this side of heaven. We will never reach a point of perfect strength and faith. But, but we have the opportunity every day to grow stronger in faith, to grow stronger in, in knowing the Lord and loving the Lord.

And, and we do this by practicing, by turning to him, by praying to him, and continually returning to that practice, returning to His Word. Day after day, to know him better and better, to know his word better and better, and to talk with him in prayer more and more each day. Growing, growing in faith, growing in strength of faith and. And growing closer to the Lord. We never arrive until he calls us home, but each day we have the opportunity to know him and to love him more and more.

Heavenly Lord, we thank you so much for the gift of life that we have. The gift of our life this side of heaven, but even more, the gift of life that we have for all eternity, that through your Son we have been forgiven. Through your Son we have been redeemed. And we are promised to be with you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for all time and eternity.

We thank you that each day this side of heaven is an opportunity to get to know you better, to love you more, and to appreciate all that you bless us with. Lord, we ask that as we face this day, that we would keep our eyes open to where you are calling us, where you are leading us. And that we would practice. That we would practice growing in faith. Practice by turning to your Word.

Practice by speaking to you in prayer and knowing that your perfection is already ours. And that your practice of loving us, redeeming us and claiming us has made us perfect. Lord, we praise you and we thank you, lifting all of this to you in the loving name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Have an amazing rest of your week, and I look forward to worshipping our Lord and Savior this Sunday. God bless.

Pastor Malinak