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From
the August/September, 2004 edition of The Chapel newsletter
by
Mike Hepler
How is Your “Race” Going?
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so
easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”
- Hebrews 12:1
Recently in our Adult Bible Fellowship (Kindred Spirits) we had some interesting discussions about this verse. We have been studying Jerry Bridges’
The Pursuit of Holiness over the past couple of months, and enjoying his concentrated study of God’s Word. We have learned how
to live a life pleasing to God, what that means on a daily basis for each of us, and the fact that it is a life long “pursuit” each of us is
to be engaged in actively .
As we looked at Hebrews
12:1, we defined “race” as our life-long struggle between our old sin nature and our new nature in
Christ...the day-to-day clashes with decisions like: how to react, what to say, what should I do, should I be looking at this, listening
to this, reading this while striving to be obedient to Him, more like Him, and living for Him.
Let’s look at this verse as we did in class, reduced to its essence.
“Let us run the race marked out for us.” Each of us has a race of our own to run
(Ephesians
2:10), and after the description of the race, is it any wonder why it’s tempting to
quit? It’s hard isn’t it! Let’s add the rest of the verse, one piece at a time.
“A great cloud of witnesses.”
Chapter 11 of
Hebrews gives us a long list of men like Abraham, Isaac, and Moses. These men were
men of God who persevered in their faith. Let’s look to them and follow their examples.
“Let us throw off everything that hinders.” What is slowing us down? What keeps us from reading His Word every day, keeps us
from growing, from serving our wives, husbands, families and church? The King James translation describes it as “weight”. How
can we run a race efficiently while carrying unnecessary weight? We are told to get rid of it.
“The sin that so easily entangles us.” Do we have unconfessed sin in our lives that hinders our
communication with God? Are there things in our lives we need to get rid of? We are told to get rid of that too.
“Run with perseverance”, our race. Don’t give up, don’t quit. When you stumble, ask Him for forgiveness, brush the dust off and
keep running. At the end is the prize…”Well done,” from the God who made us. Oh, and one more thing...the last phrase describes
the race as having been “marked out for us.” Unless you know which way to run, you can be “sidelined” as a spectator. In the race
as a believer, Christians cannot expect to find joy in the race or impact a life for Christ as a spectator.
The race is indeed a lifelong one, and you run a piece of it each day you live. It is best to know which way to run each day by looking
at the course laid out for you personally in His Word.
In
Christ,
Mike Hepler
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