Run the Race

October 24, 2011

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Hebrews 12:1

We are marathon runners, not short-term sprinters. Like the early church, we must choose to continually devote ourselves to a life of pursuing God (Acts 2:42). Endurance has decisional aspects. In the 1968 Olympics, marathon runner John Stephen Akhwari chose to finish his race despite injury. His response when asked why he didn’t quit: “My country did not send me 5,000 miles to start the race; they sent me 5,000 miles to finish the race.” In the Word, God has provided powerful examples of people who ran with endurance—Esther, Noah, Abraham, Martha, Ruth, Moses. We are standing on the shoulders of these people who endured.

Your life is with Christ, and you are an ambassador for Him. Serving Jesus isn’t a weekend thing that we accessorize with a little religion. Jesus is front and center—our all in all. And He wants us to impact our world. We’ve been given the life-changing message of the Gospel, and we have a responsibility to carry it to the people around us. Those in the early church saw results by enduring and continually devoting themselves. I want results too. I want to see my generation come to Jesus.

The early church had a mission to go into the whole world and make disciples. Since Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we still have that same ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:18; Hebrews 13:8). We have the same Jesus, the same Holy Spirit, the same potential, and therefore the same responsibility to continually devote ourselves. We can’t wait around for someone else to do it. We strengthen our resolve and say “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15b).

We run the race for an imperishable prize (1 Corinthians 9:25). We run with endurance so that at the end of our lives we can say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). Our endurance will resound through all eternity.

Continue,
Pastor Jeff

Copyright © 2007 St. Louis Family Church. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reprinted or distributed in any form without prior written permission of St. Louis Family Church. Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB) Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.