July and August Pastor Letter

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

For those of you who are wondering, I am doing fine after the hip surgery and progressing nicely.  But one thing that I have to do everyday is get proper exercise.   Now that might be walking, doing stairs, or the prescribed exercises.  Why is this so important?  Because I need to strengthen the muscles and get them to do more and with ease.  But there is a problem that I have noticed in the past: running, riding a bicycle, and going to the gym.  Exercises can hurt, and we have a tendency to avoid things that hurt.  But if I want to walk without the cane I have to do as much as my body will tolerate.  

But are our bodies the only thing we need to exercise?  No, they are not.  Take, for example, knowledge that we have - things that we have learned.  If you have learned to speak in a foreign language you have to use it or you will lose it.  

Our faith is kind of like that.  We need to exercise our faith so that it can grow stronger.  How do we do that?  We need to dig into God’s Word.  We need to read it, hear it, and study it so that we grow in our understanding as well as in what we know.  But sometimes that hurts.  You are correct; sometimes God’s Word hurts because the law points out our sins.  We don’t like being told we have done something wrong, but we need to hear it.  We need to hear it so that we know how much we need Jesus and the full and free salvation that he offers us.  When that “faith muscle” aches is when the gospel soothes it and makes it grow.  

Now like they told me when I started doing the exercises, “Don’t try to do it all at once.”  Build up to some of these things.  In fact, one exercise, they told me to wait to do it at all.  That’s the way it is with our faith too.  The apostle Peter compares feeding our souls to how a child grows from milk to solid food in 1 Peter 5:2-3, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”  

So brothers and sisters in Christ, open God’s Word and have a great workout.  Grow in your faith and understanding.  

Your brother in Christ, 

Pastor Muske