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July 15, 2003
Running the Race
Hebrews 12: 1 - 3 (NLT)
1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us. 2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from start to finish. He was willing to die a shameful death on the cross because of the joy he knew would be his afterward. Now he is seated in the place of highest honor beside God's throne in heaven. 3 Think about all he endured when sinful people did such terrible things to him, so that you don't become weary and give up.
I want to run the race the rest of my life.
Recently in my life I have been thinking and dreaming (I guess you could say it is a developing passion) about running the race to win and finishing it. So many get bogged down with snags along the way. My desire is to look back after 50 years and to see those years filled with hard running after the prize. I want to like Paul have my life poured out like a drink offering. But how do I accomplish this when so many others have failed. I think that this verse can give us some great (but difficult to apply over the long haul) steps.
1. Throw off everything that hinders especially sin. If we are proactive in getting rid of the things in our lives that keep us from God we can obviously increase our speed. If we can eliminate the sin then we are even more free to accomplish the things God has for us.
2. How? By fixing our eyes on Jesus. Knowing where our focus should be. If we focus on trying to eliminate the sin and other distractions we trick ourselves into slowing down and not running. Not to say that we should ignore area’s in our lives that we need to work on but if our primary focus is the health of our relationship then we are able to continue in our journey.
3. Consider what Christ went through. Again that takes your eyes off of your own mournful situation. It gives the correct perspective and allows you to look towards the finish line and not just mope around waiting for things to get better before you take action.
Posted by paul at July 15, 2003 03:32 PM