Keep your eyes on the goal – Part 2

Running the Christian race requires that we lay aside every weight that will impede our step, speed and journey to heaven. Therefore, our conduct, character and lifestyle must conform to that of Christ. “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). Sin terminates the Christian race. And anyone who dies in sin will miss heaven.

The family life is like a race. So, we must love, forgive, help and support each other to get to heaven. We will run this race successfully, if we are not weighed down emotionally or psychologically. As a minister, lay aside the challenges that tend to weigh you down or hinder you from running the race of the ministry successfully. Your profession is like a race. Many seemingly unbearable issues will try to overwhelm you; without laying such weights aside, you cannot run the race.

We must run the Christian race with faith, grace, love towards God and man, obedience to the word of God, faithfulness, fidelity, honesty, probity, conviction and courage. We cannot run the race with the weight of guilt and condemnation, pride and strife, envy and jealousy, social influence and consciousness of the world, worry and anxiety, greed and covetousness, encumbrance and entanglement, and expect God to reward us on the final day. So, lay aside every common, habitual, secret, public or approved sin. “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin” (Romans 6:6).

We should constantly look up to Jesus Christ, the Author of our faith, and our perfect Example. “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith… For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps” (Hebrews 12:2; 1 Peter 2:21). As Christ endured the Cross for the salvation of humanity, we should endure insult and shame from sinners. Although the Lord did all that the Father sent Him to do, they called Him a sinner and said He had a devil. If we must run the race successfully, we must ensure that we endure all the contradiction of sinners like Christ, Who is now “set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

The Christian life is that of resistance to temptation and the devil. Therefore, there must be personal determination to finish the race. Do not be weary in your conviction, commitment and decision to follow the Lord till the end. Be determined to run the race to the finishing line, and He will give you the victory. Since Christ and others before us ran the race successfully, there is no reason for us to fail. Besides, there is sufficient grace to run the race with perseverance, faith, obedience and faithfulness, until we get to heaven.

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). So, examine your life and set aside everything that hinders you from living a holy and transparent life that qualify you to be in heaven.

Further Reading (King James Version): Hebrews 12:1-4; 1 Samuel 17:38,39; 1 Peter 2:1,2; Mathew 23:4; John 5:14; Romans 6:6,12,13,18,22; 1 Corinthians 15:34; Hebrews 11:25; 1 John 3:4-9; 1 Peter 2:21; Philippians 2:5-8; Isaiah 50:6; John 9:24,31-34; 10:20,21; Hebrews 1:3; 1 Peter 3:22; Colossians 3:1-4.