Have you ever run a long distance race? I see the high schoolers out running all the time. Some of them look like they are getting weary. I remember way back when I would run. Muscles you haven’t used in a while start to hurt. Also, I would start to get out of breath. I remember the track you would run on. One big circle. You would start and have to go around the circle. Some of us would end up walking instead of running. But the key was to keep on moving and finish the course.
If you are a Christian you are in a race, the Christian race. We are pressing on toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We need to keep moving forward for the cause of Christ. We need to look forward not back. Every try to finish a race when you keep looking backwards. Won’t work! In a track meet you have a winner. But do you know in the Christian race there are no loser’s only winners!
So let’s see what a runner needs. They most have speed and pace themselves. Do you watch a race and see the runners with stuff on their backs? No! Just like the Christian race we need to cast aside stuff that is holding us back from winning the Christian race.
Hebrews 12:1- Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us
A lot of times we as Christians seem to carry the weight of the world on our back. I have seen people go to the alter on Sunday’s and ask God to take their burdens. Then they stand up and take it back with them instead of leaving it with God.
1 Peter 5:7. Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
Runners also need to stay focused. Like in a race the runner has a goal, to finish the race. They look ahead for the end not all around them. Could you imagine a runner if they took their focus off the running path and started looking everywhere else. They would never win a race. That is the same for Christians we need to keep our focus on Christ. He is our reward.
Dr, H.A. Ironside wrote- We do not become holy by looking into our own hearts. There we find only corruption. But as we look away from self altogether, “looking on to Jesus,: as He is the object in which we delight, as we contemplate His holiness, purity, love, and compassion, His devotion to the father’s will, we shall be transformed, imperceptibly to ourselves, perhaps, but none the less surely, into His image. “
Then last but not least we get the prize! The world races for the corruptible crown but we as Christians run for the incorruptible crown. May we run the race diligently until the Lord calls us home- serving Him in all that we do. I want to hear the words Well done, good and faithful servant.