Articles
Running To Win
As we live our lives as Christians, the Bible calls it a race, so that we can better comprehend, and it says our race course is marked out for us. Likewise, we know already that Jesus is the finish line, that is where we look as we are running because veering off the race course requires us to adjust and get back on the course again.
God expects us to have a job and earn a living, and we know that takes up a lot of our daily time. God wants us to raise families, and kids take time. We need exercise and to have some recreation, and there are countless other things that just make up life as we know it. We are not called to get rid of these good things.
But there are things that get in the way that we can get rid of and be a lot better off if we do. Sin, and anything associated with the life we said we were leaving in order to live a new life to Christ, are just dragging us down and limiting what we can do sometimes to the point that we just want to quit. They are keeping us from running our race as we should and may keep us from finishing at all. They slow us down, cause us trouble, make us fall behind and can certainly trip us up and injure us. Sinful things cause us to look other directions while we are running, and we take our eyes off of Jesus, our finish line.
The Hebrew writer (thought by most to be the Apostle Paul) said these words about our struggle against these sinful things that slow us down, and lead us off the path, ..."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, fixing our eyes on Jesus"... Heb 12:1b-2a)
If we seriously care about winning a foot race, we certainly won't run it wearing heavy clothes, bulky boots and wearing a backpack. Do we run our Christian race that way? Do we care about winning our Christian race?
