Repost: To all the runners out there…
Dec 20
This is one of my old posts and since I don’t have anything to say right now I thought I would give ya’ll something to read.
1 Cor. 9:24-27
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. The do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”Heb 12:1-2
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Since most of us know what it is like to carry a backpack around for school, let’s pretend for a moment that on a particular day of the week we have ten classes back to back with no time in between to switch out our books. We will have to suppose also that there is a backpack big enough to hold all ten of those books. This would mean lugging those books around every day that you had those classes. Pretty hard, but do-able. We might develop some back problems, but that is beside the point. Now, lets pretend that we are long distance runners. Would you wear that backpack to run in a meet? Sounds pretty crazy, but the sad part of it is that there are many believers who do this exact thing. No, not just many, all of us. It is a constant battle to “lay aside every weight and sin”. We come to the starting line every day with so much baggage that it becomes difficult to run the way God wants us to.
We try to deal with things ourselves when all these things do is slow us down. Instead we should start our day with the question, “Is there any weight or sin that I have not given over to the Lord?” I believe that our focus is the key. “Looking to Jesus” Do we wake up every morning and look to Him, or do we become consumed with what happened yesterday, what trials we have to go through today, or feeling hopeless about a sin we are struggling with. Casting our burdens on Him on a daily, hourly, momentary basis is the key to lightening our load so we can “run with endurance”, not focused on the next turn, but on the “founder and perfecter of our faith”, so that we might receive the imperishable reward.
This reward might seem to be enough of an incentive to run with our eyes focused on Christ, but there is another. There is the crowd watching as well. This “cloud of witnesses” is watching the way we are running. Will they see Christ in the way we live our lives?
Brian
