Last night the sermon came from the beginning of Hebrews 12. Here are a few things from it I wanted to share.
This race is the Christian life, doing what God has called us each to do. It isn’t easy, but we’re here to run so run we should!
In the previous chapter (11) the writer of Hebrews talks about major and minor Old Testament people who had great faith and are now in Heaven, connecting them to this race in chapter 12 as the crowds in the stands watching us and cheering us on! Moses, Abraham, Samuel, Daniel, the prophets – all those people we read about – are watching us run the race God has set before us!
When you run, it helps not to be encumbered by unnecessary weight. We should be putting down the things that weigh us down. Sometimes it might even be something good, but if you’re running sometimes you need to put certain things down or take them off. What is good or allowable isn’t always necessary or helpful (1 Corinthians 10:23). A backpack may carry some useful things, but when runners are in a race they don’t carry them. Big baggy sweatpants are comfy, but you’ll need to ditch those for something more practical when running a race.
Imagine a race where some of the runners gave up halfway through because the figured they weren’t going to make it. Imagine some of them didn’t even start for fear of failure. We don’t watch and enjoy races where the runners give up, and the runners don’t enjoy it either. You might trip sometimes, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t start running! You might fall sometimes, but you should still run! That’s the point of a race, to run as well as you can!
Connected to this, lest we feel overwhelmed by this race we should keep our focus on Jesus. He’s already run this race. He knows how it goes, He’s been through the worst of it, and He’s beat it! Jesus knows how you feel when the race gets difficult, and He’s right there to help you!
Keep running!