How to Train for a Race

The Race of Faith

What does it take for us to successfully run the race of faith?  Is it a ever-mounting list of jobs and responsibilities?  Is it public perception of us?  Think about a race.  Before you can run a race, you need to train for the race.  You cannot just walk out of your living room and start a 5K race and expect to win if you haven't trained a minute for it!  Training builds muscle, tones the body, strengthens the bones, increases the efficiency of the heart and lungs and builds endurance. Training builds you up and increases both your abilities and your confidence as you push yourself to new limits.  Often times an athlete trains either alone or with just the trainer.  The trainers job is to point out weaknesses and areas that need improvement and push you further than you've gone before until FINALLY!....you are ready to run the race.

Hebrews 12:1-2 reads, "Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Hebrews 11 is renowned for being the "Faith Chapter" and it truly outlines the lives and reasons and footsteps of many who have gone ahead but chapter 12 is encouraging us as we run the race.  Note that the author does not talk about the past prophets in a past tense.  He is currently surrounding the believer with this cloud of witnesses.  Imagine yourself surrounded with Sarah, Abraham, Moses, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, David, Samson, and so on.  As you go through a tough time and your training gets tougher and the race gets a little longer, or steeper, or hotter, these folks are witnessing your race and cheering you on from the sidelines!  We are told to lay aside EVERY weight.  How can you run with speed and agility if you are carrying weights?  Won't that wear you down faster?  Won't it exhaust you quicker and perhaps make you wince and complain or even change you focus from the race to the burden of the weights?  Hmmmm...interesting.  The reference extends to the sin that ensnares us which carries the same power as the burden of a weight but the picture is different because the sin is ensnaring us which gives a picture of a vine wrapping around the runners feet and legs and which will finally cause that individual to fall and run no more.

So how do you run successfully?  Keep your eyes focused on Jesus.  As the coach, Jesus will guide and give pointers and encouragement along the way.  At times He will rebuke us as we make mistakes, too.   Jesus is noted here as the author and finisher of our faith.  An author comes up with an idea, makes notes, jots down some thoughts, and then begins writing.  The writing is written and rewritten until the final product echos the original thought or idea.  Then, as the son of a carpenter, Christ is the finisher of our faith.  He puts the final touches on and sands out the blemishes, carves the proper curves and nails together the different parts to complete the project.  None of the actions of either the author or finisher are "speaking into perfection" but rather actions of elimination, reinforcement, alteration, etc. so that change brings along the finished product.  Jesus was our example on the cross as He did not focus His eyes or mind on the physical suffering of the cross and the rejection He suffered from both man and His heavenly Father but rather, He focused on the prize.  He saw the eternal life and the crown and the seat at the right hand of God the Father.  He saw what the end result was and knew He had to travel that path the receive the prize.  He is our example.  He is our ultimate trend setter.  Those are the footsteps we are to follow in and whatever trials, judgement and criticism we receive, it will never be to the extent of what our Lord suffered for us.

Go in Faith and run your race with steady footsteps.  Put down your weights and continue with your eyes focused on the perfect example Christ set for us while listening to His encouraging words.

A call to repentance

I heard someone speaking the other day about the economic condition in America and how it correlates to other things going on in the world and then the secular theories and psychological theories that an unsaved world sees going hand in hand with the trends and habits of the current society.  One of the things mentioned was the increasing number of single mothers and how that group is getting continually younger every year.  This trend is considered a sign of economic collapse.

Why would it be considered a sign of economic collapse?  A single mother struggles to provide food, shelter, love, a family structure, a secure environment, and a financial future of some kind.  In a God ordained structure, the family unit is comprised of two adults leading, grooming, supporting, loving, encouraging, and procreating.  In this rapid acceleration of sexual immorality we see a single family unit struggling to survive and many times, not succeeding very well.

In the book Hosea, chapter 4:1-3 God is talking to Israel but this applies to todays world as well.  It applies as a warning.  "Hear the word of the Lord, Your children of Israel, for the Lord brings a charge against the inhabitants of the land:  'There is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land.  By swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, They break all restraint.  With bloodshed upon bloodshed.  Therefore the land will mourn; And everyone who dwells there will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even the fish of the sea will be taken away."  Do the actions described here sound anything like what you see on the news and hear around the water cooler?  Do the Facebook posts you read and the drama you observe have any assimilation to this description?  Does our legal system embrace truth, mercy or at the very least knowledge of God?  I think not.  The lack of restraint in relationships now is absurd.  People walk away from a relationship and trade in out of discomfort, impatience, selfishness and convenience rather than staying together and learning the art of communication, submission, restraint and compromise.  Two become one....when you take two different colors of Playdoh and squish them together, it takes work to get them to meld together.  They are never going to be one color or the other but eventually, after much kneading and rolling and contorting, become a whole other color.  That is what marriage is like.  Even if you take and try to separate those colors again, they will always have remnants of the other color in them.  They will never be what they were originally.

We have forgotten how we came to be on this earth.  God is loosing His patience, I believe and is quietly making His presence known.  The weather becomes more extreme, man becomes bolder in their interference and blatant disregard for God and we are seeing things happening that we will not be able to control.  We are but a speck in the universe and our existence is less than a moment in time.  Share this with people you know who are not paying attention.  God is walking away from us and the church is quietly observing this retreat.  We are looking at society and embracing the sin as well as the sinner instead of standing up for what is biblical and what is true.  Can we reverse the motion of the world?  Perhaps not but more so, perhaps we can take a stand and bring in a flush of new souls to the gates of heaven rather than watching the march of souls into Hell's lake of fire.