[Steve Myers] It's an exciting time of the year. It's the time for the Olympics. Every four years the summer games begin. And it is astonishing to see the potential that people have to break world records, to run faster, to swim hard, to do these amazing feats. And it is always remarkable to see the results of the Olympic Games.

And of course these athletes, boy, do they practice. They are ready for these games from all over the world. But it takes a lot of exercise to get ready for the games, doesn't it? And when you think about the exercise and the time that they have put in to make their bodies do these amazing things, it's really phenomenal. It's a phenomenal thing.

Now, when you take that whole idea and translate that to the spiritual realm think about that for a minute. Exercise is an amazing thing that not only gets our bodies in shape, but we also need mental exercise. We need spiritual exercise.  We need daily exercise. These athletes have put in time every single day. And you know if we're going to be close to God, if we're going to be a spiritual creation in Christ, we have to exercise.

And there are important things that we do every single day just like an Olympic athlete has to do, we've got to do as well if we're going to be close to God.

Now, one of the most important things in our daily exercise is we better be praying. We better pray to God. And of course, part of what athletes do is they have that daily bread. Over in Matthew chapter 6 it talks about that. Christ said that we should be praying, "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11). It's over in verse 11 in Matthew chapter 6. And so we have to be praying and asking God to supply us our needs, drawing closer to Him in prayer every single day we must be doing that. And of course it doesn't stop there.

In an athlete's regime, they have all kinds of things. Not only do they have to eat good food, not only do they have to prepare their minds like we do in prayer, but they also have to study. They have to learn the techniques of their discipline if they're going to succeed in what they do. And so we too, we've got to study God's word. We have to put it into practice. We have to do those things.

Now there's an amazing passage that's back in the book of Acts. And in the book of Acts it talks about those who study God's word. They were in Berea and that's over in Acts chapter 17. And in Acts 17:11 it said that these people were more fair minded and that they received the word with all readiness. So they went to their Bibles, they searched the scriptures, and guess what it says? Daily - they searched those scriptures daily and studied God's word to know what was God's will. What was His will for their lives? And so they did that. They did that on a daily basis. They exercised themselves as they studied the word.

And of course that also then leads us to a third thing. A third thing that we need to do daily as we come before God is to praise Him. We need to honor God. We need to put Him first in our life. And that comes through praising and honoring and obeying Him. And there's a great passage over in Psalms 72. In Psalms 72 - it's an amazing passage. It says in verse 12, "He will deliver the needy when he cries, the poor also and him who has no helper" (Psalm 72:12). So here we are on the opposite extreme from the great Olympian athlete, those of us who are in trouble, those of us that aren't well off, those of us who have challenges and have trials. We have a surety from God that He is with us every single day, even in the difficult times. So we have an awesome God that's always there for us. In fact, down in verse 15 it says, "He shall live and prayer also will be made for Him continually and daily He shall be praised" (Psalm 72:15). So that's down in verse 15 of Psalms 72.

So when we do these things - when we pray, when we study, when we praise God and we do it on a daily basis, you know where we're going to be. We're going to be in the winners' circle. We're going to get, not just a gold medal that will fade over time, but we will receive the ultimate reward. We can be in the Kingdom of God as a child of His forever. So remember as you watch the Olympics this summer, remember we have a daily exercise. We have a commission from God and we're in a race. We're in the race of our life. So let's put those things into practice and then we can be assured we will be there in the Kingdom of God in the winners' circle when Christ returns.

That's BT Daily. We'll see you next time.