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Trusting God is the Goal

 

Doesn’t it seem logical to think that if you are a faithful follower of Jesus your life will go smoothly, except for a few bumps along the way?  Besides, isn’t a trouble free life directly related to the decisions you make along the way?

The above paragraph sure sounds good, but life is not always logical. The problem is  “life happens” along the way. Yes, it is true our decisions or lack of decisions do affect the quality of our life, but our best laid plans can be short circuited by those unexpected and unforeseen events that surprise us.

So the issue is not will we have circumstances that get us out of our comfort zone, but  rather the issue is how do we respond in the midst of the circumstances?   The greatest element in the midst of a major problem is the development of our perspective rather than the solution of our problem.  The solution is certainly an important aspect but our reaction is the key component to any crisis.

You can observe this principle at work throughout Scripture.  When the disciples were afraid in the midst of the storm at sea, they wondered why Jesus was asleep down below.  Jesus wanted them to have faith that He would take care of them in the storm.  To the disciples the storm was the issue; to Jesus, faith was the issue.

When Jesus was teaching the 5000 that had gathered in the countryside the disciples said, “Let’s send them home so they can get something to eat.”   Then Jesus said, “you feed them.”  The disciples immediately responded, “You want us to spend 200 denarii on bread?”  Again, the disciples missed the point. He wanted them to immediately trust God in the midst of any kind of crisis.  It never dawned on them that Jesus could provide a miraculous solution.

Just like the storm on the sea, this event was to test the disciple’s resolve to trust and depend upon God in every situation.  The same is true with us.  I am convinced that every problem and crisis is a test.  Will we worry and be full of doubt and fear, or will we trust Him to do what we can’t do on our own?

Instead of being full of worry and fear, God desires our immediate response to be, “Father, show me your will in this situation.”  God is active and involved in every aspect of your life, whether you sense it or not. You can either resort to worry or you can chose to believe that God is up to something in your life that will result in a new level of faith.

I like the way Henry Blackaby says it in his “Experiencing God” series; “Go to God and ask Him to help you see His perspective on your situation…When you face confusing circumstances, don’t start blaming God. Don’t just give up following Him. Go to God.  Ask Him to reveal the truth of your circumstances. Ask Him to show you His perspective. Then wait on the Lord.”*

Facing difficulties is really all about the process of teaching you to trust God. It’s about Jesus actively becoming Lord of your life.  That means He becomes the Focus, the Initiator and Director of your life. You will never know the truth of our circumstances until you have heard from God.*

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight.” (Proverbs 3:5-6)

*(Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God, Lifeway Press,1990)

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The Real Purpose of Spiritual Maturity

If you have been a follower of Jesus for a while you have often heard how important it is to grow toward maturity.  The Scripture has plenty to say about spiritual growth and its impact on our fellowship with the Lord.  We grow so that we can have a more intimate relationship with the Father.  We push toward maturity so that we will not fall into temptation.

I could list many benefits that motivate us toward maturity, but I believe there is one paramount reason for spiritual maturity and it has to do with developing enduring strength.  I am not referring to strength for you, even though that is a side benefit, but I am referring to the strength you give to others.

Paul gives us an excellent explanation of the purpose of maturity in Romans 15:1-4.  I like the rendering of this passage in the paraphrase called the Message.

“Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter and not just do what is most convenient for us.  Strength is for service, not statue. Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?”  That is what Jesus did, He took on the troubles of the troubled.”

Maturity brings strength and strength brings hope, not only to us but to those around us who are troubled.  Jesus who is our example, took on the troubles of those who had no hope and imparted hope.  Spiritual maturity motivates us to give our life away and by doing so imparting hope.  Show me a person who complains about helping others and I will show you a person who is lacking spiritual maturity.  To say it another way, we are to be imparters of hope.

It has been said that every person continually influences and impacts at least five different people.  That means that at any given time throughout your life, there are five people watching and following what you say and do.  The direction of their life will be impacted by your influence. We won’t always be aware of the identity of those five people because some are watching from the shadows.

So a person who is spiritually mature will display Christ’s strength and strength gives hope. It’s not how much you know but it is “Who” you know. By having an intimate relationship with the Father the resulting maturity causes you to know Christ and then manifest His very life. (Philippians 3:10).

I encourage you to move outside your comfort zone.  Trust your spiritual maturity to impact your world.  You may not realize it, but the living Christ within you is a magnet of hope to those who are troubled. You don’t have to beat people over the head with Scripture to impact their life.  Just walk in maturity and let the living Christ within you draw people to you.  Remember, your maturity brings strength that produces hope.  Be prepared to give your life away.

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Living Life Looking Backward

 

Nearly everyone knows someone who is filled with resentment, discouragement, and frustration.  Many of these folks seem to be angry at the world.  Where is this behavior coming from?  It comes from living in the past or as I like to say, “Living life looking backward.”

Living backward is a sure sign that something in the past is controlling the present.  We all have past hurts that we vividly remember.  They are like scars that remind us of previous wounds that we would like to erase from our memories.  The issue here is not do we have scars?  The issue is do we let the scars of the past control our future?

When I teach on the subject of biblical forgiveness I usually have someone approach me afterwards and say to me that they had been taught that true forgiveness is completely forgetting about the past event.  I would respond,“that this is impossible.”  I then tell them the story about me jumping on the bed when I was a kid and landing on a pair of scissors that went up my leg.  The event was frightening, the pain was real and the doctor didn’t use anesthetic when he sewed me up.

Do you think that I can forget that incident, not on your life?  Fifty plus years later I still have the scar to prove it. But the key point is I don’t let this past event control my life. I don’t dwell on the pain and the fright that the doctor caused me, but every once and a while I will see the scar and I will be reminded of that day. My scar reminds me of the painful event.

In a similar manner, when we allow our hurtful past to control our present, we begin to live backwards.  We are allowing the past to set our attitude and agenda for our life.  True forgiveness is not totally forgetting the past but it is simply letting go of the past and not letting it control our present.

I remember a series of counseling sessions with a man who had a very hurtful and nasty divorce. The betrayal and hurt was overwhelming.  I asked him, “Have you really forgiven your ex-wife?”  He said, “Yes I have.” Then I said, “Then why do you bring her up with anger nearly every conversation we have?”  I knew he hadn’t forgiven, not only because he couldn’t stop bashing her, but because he had become an angry man.

Left unattended, the root of unforgiveness go deep and causes us to live in both the past and the future.  We live in the past because we are angry and we just can’t get past the anger.  The anger touches all of our relationships.  When the roots of anger spread out it also causes us to live in the future. When we live in the future we become fearful.  Living in the past causes anger and living in the future causes fear.  So the person filled with anger lives in the past and the future, vacillating between anger and fear.  Real peace is only found in living in the present, trusting God for today and living in the now.  We are only at peace when we leave the past in forgiveness and put the future in God hands.

You do have a choice.  You can choose to hold onto the past and live looking backward or you can chose with an act of your will to forgive. You may be saying, “I just can’t let go.”  That’s correct. You can’t forgive on your own. Forgiveness is a supernatural act.  Forgiveness becomes a supernatural act when you surrender your helplessness and inability to God. Your part is to repent and with an act of your will, by faith, forgive. Then allow the Holy Spirit to do His supernatural work in you to complete the transaction.  God will never ask you to do anything that He will not enable you to do.  Will you take that step of faith and stop living life looking backward?

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Spiritually Sidetracked

 

“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith…” (1 Peter 5:8) 

Watchmen Nee said:

“Satan has a plan against the saints of the Most High. It is to wear them out. What is meant by this phrase, “wear them out”? It has in it the idea of reducing a little this minute, then reducing a little further the next minute.  Reduce a little today, reduce a little tomorrow. Thus wearing out is almost imperceptible; nevertheless, it is a reducing. The wearing down is scarcely an activity of which one is conscious, yet the end result is that there is nothing left.  He will take away your prayer life little by little and cause you to trust God less and less and yourself more and more and more, a little at a time.  He will make you feel somewhat more clever than before.  Step by step, you are misled to rely more on your own gift, and step by step, you heart is enticed away from the Lord. Now, were Satan to strike the children of God with great force at one time, they would know exactly how to visit the enemy since they would immediately recognize his work. He uses the method of gradualism to wear down the people of God.”

I don’t think any sincere believer intends to get spiritually sidetracked.  It never happens suddenly, it a gradual thing. It may be our busyness with life, our dissatisfaction with our local church or a focus on material things.  Whatever the cause, this gradualism spiritually erodes our fellowship with God. Suddenly we discover that our ‘heart for God’ has now turned cool or maybe even cold.

How can we prevent this gradualism from occurring? Peter’s advice is to be “self-controlled and alert”. It is the practice of continually setting your mind on truth. Paul offers good counsel in Colossians 3, “Set your mind on the things above…for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

The principal and exercise of ‘Setting the Mind’ has been especially helpful to me. Setting the mind is an intentional exercise of replacing untruthful thoughts with a Biblical truth. 

There is no better way to set our mind on truth than to make sure we have regular fellowship with the Lord. The Word and Prayer keep the enemy’s gradualism from wearing us down. The Scripture affirms our identity in Christ.  I like what Jack Taylor says about the importance of focusing on who we are in Christ; “Inherent in who we are is our ability to perform it.” 

“…as you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him.”

(Colossians 2:6)

 

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Taking Risks

Recently I read an article by a missionary that reminded me of the courage of Caleb in the Bible. After a rereading the Scripture passages regarding this courageous servant, I was struck by his passion to take risks even in his old age.
Not long after the Israelites had come out of Egypt, Moses asked Caleb and other Israelite operatives to go spy out the land to see what it would take to overcome the enemy and capture the land. Everyone came back with a negative report, except Caleb (Numbers 14). The spies were full of fear and were totally faithless. The fear of the spies spread to the people, they became fearful and even complained to Moses that they should have stayed in Egypt.
But Caleb, who was 40 years old at the time, was full of faith and courage. He knew God would go before them and give them victory if they would just trust God and step out by faith.
Forty-five years later, after all the other spies had died, Caleb was once again confronted with an opportunity to trust God for the impossible. He boldly declared to Joshua, “My strength now is as my strength was (back) then, now give me this mountain…the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out as the Lord has spoken.” (Joshua 14:12)
After reading about Caleb I have determined I want to be like Caleb. He was not only courageous, but he was willing to step out by faith and take a risks. He was not resting on past obedience and experiences, but he was just as willing to boldly step out and trust God in his old age as he was when he was a young forty years old warrior.
Can you imagine the impact that Caleb’s faith and courage had on those young Israeli soldiers?  I am sure Caleb told the story of being tutored by Moses and how Moses sent him and the other men to survey the land forty-five years earlier. He must have reminded them that they will be the soldiers who chose to do what their ancestors would not do, and that is to have the courage to believe that the battle is the Lord’s.  They will partner with God and witness first-hand, the miraculous power of God. Their stories of conquest will be told for centuries.     What have I learned from the life of Caleb?
  1. Risk takers hear from God and go for it.
  2. Risk taking destroys all confidence in human strategy or models.
  3. Risk taking first involves obedience, even though the “how” is not yet visible.
  4. Trusting God for the impossible has no age barrier.
  5. God desires to use us at every stage of our life, if we will take the risk to follow His direction.
Will you be a risk-taker, stepping out in faith and be willing to obey God to make the way, even though you can’t see how it will all come together? I believe God is looking for some Caleb’s…those willing to say yes to the Lord. Would you be willing to forsake all that is safe and comfortable and follow His leading? Would you be willing to say to the Lord, “I am willing to be a Caleb, show me the way and I will go?”
“The weakness of so many modern Christians is that they feel too much at home in the world.” – A.W.Tozer
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Condemnation

 

I once spoke in a church on the subject of Self-Condemnation.  Before I spoke, I asked the congregation if anyone had experienced self-condemnation the preceding week. Most all raised their hand and admitted that they were in some way involved in self-condemnation. One lady even acknowledged that she was struggling with condemnation that very day.
 
Do you struggle with condemnation?  Are you frequently beating up on yourself, thinking you are not good enough, holy enough and worthless?  Have you been told or made to believe that you are not important? Do you have a sense of being useless or unimportant? When we choose to believe those false messages we set ourselves up for a sense of condemnation.
 
When I speak of condemnation, I am not referring to a sense of guilt or conviction because of unconfessed sin. Holy Spirit conviction is a good thing; it drives us to repentance and restoration of broken fellowship with our Father. 
 
Condemnation is defined as “the act of giving disapproval; to judge yourself unfit for use or service.”  It is a by-product of our flesh and it never comes from God.
 
Condemnation is one of the devil’s most effective tactics. He capitalizes on our emotional weakness and insecurity, then using little effort, he pushes us toward condemnation.  Actually, we do most of the work for him – all he does is gives us a little nudge.
 
Condemnation is a by-product of the law of sin and death
 
The apostle Paul writes in Romans 8:1; “That there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”   When someone becomes a follower of Jesus he is no longer under the sentence of condemnation.  Matter of fact, in the next verse Paul even indicates that condemnation is a by-product of the law of sin and death.  In other words, there is never any room for condemnation in a believer’s life or vocabulary.  When the law of sin and death was conquered at the cross, it was replaced by “the law of life in Christ Jesus.”  To accept and even verbalize self-condemnation is to acknowledge that Jesus’ death and resurrection has no supernatural power, and leaves us without hope of victory.
 
The truth is, because of the resurrection, we have received a power that trumps the power of sin and death and all its by-products, such as condemnation.  Our identity is no longer tied to our performance. We are no longer a sum total of our failures but we are now an expression of the living, victorious Christ within.   His life is now our life. What defines us is Christ’s life within which is characterized as holy, righteous and victorious.  We are all these things regardless of how we perform or how we appear in other’s eyes.  That’s because our identity is not tied to our performance or emotions but to who we are in Christ.  It is important to remember;
 
“We are who we are by birth (spiritual birth in Christ), not by our performance.” 
 
That’s the reason we don’t live in the past. We can’t change or fix the past, we can only live in the now, one day at a time, trusting the living Christ within us for today. If you fixate on the past, you can never provide hope for the future. The past and all its baggage becomes your life. You are bound to repeat the past over and over again.
 
What’s the key to dealing with condemnation?  (1) Acknowledge that your thoughts of condemnation are sin.  Until you acknowledge that this pattern of thinking is sin, condemnation will dominate your life. Repentance of wrong thinking is just as important as repentance of wrong deeds. (2) Stop believing the lie.  Since condemnation never comes from God then its source is not trustworthy and is built on deception and lies. Condemnation is not the real you. (3) You must affirm the positive. That means practice the positive affirmation of your identity in Christ. Just as you rehearsed thoughts of condemnation, now rehearse thoughts of your identity in Christ. The power lies in verbally acknowledging the truth about who you are in Christ.  Because you act out what you think, you must practice setting your mind on truth. Why is that important? It’s because the truth is what sets you free! Setting your mind on God’s truth is a supernatural action that heals the mind of constant condemning thoughts.
 
You now have a choice
Picture it this way.  In the left hand you have condemnation and all its baggage.  In the right hand you have the truth of your identity. Which will you chose to believe? The left hand that promises nothing but misery and destruction, plus new negative emotions that will soon be piled on top of what is already there?  
 
Or will you choose the right hand which offers truth, victory and rest? This is a belief system and lifestyle that was designed and given by God himself as a gift to you.  By applying the truth of your identity you can now experience the release of “trying to measure up” to unreasonable expectations and constant thoughts of condemnation. 
 
God does not dwell in the land of condemnation.  He dwells in the land of rest for the weary. The more you entertain the condemnation cycle the more it will dominate your life.  Instead, enter the “rest cycle”.  There is a rest for the people of God and we enter that rest when we make a decision with our will to lay all our anxiety, all our condemnation, and all of our fear at the foot of the Cross.  Those things you bring to the cross are put to death. After you bring it to the cross then choose to believe what He says about you.  You see – it’s really about allowing the living Christ in you to be basis of your identity.(Colossians 2:10)
 
That reminds me of the lyrics from a song sung by Christian artist Larnelle Harris;
 
“It’s not in trying but in trusting
It’s not in running but in resting,
Not in wondering but in praying,
That we find the strength of the Lord.
 
Because of Christ,
Larry
 

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If Only

“If only…” I suppose many of us could finish that sentence with a sad, angry or regretful story. The truth is most of us have a lifetime full of “what ifs”. As we mull over the circumstances it still doesn’t change what happened. As a matter of fact, living in the world of “what if” is living in a world where God does not even exist.

We live with regrets because we think we should. We think it is the right thing to do, that it is our duty as a sinner before God. It is as if we think we deserve the pain of living with regret.

Living in a world of “what if” is a universal problem. I have sat in my office and heard hundreds of stories that began with “what if” or “if only”. As I speak in churches in North America and in foreign countries, I hear the same ole phrase…”If only this did not happen my life and circumstances would have been different.”

Yes, it is true that events change the course of our life and we need to learn from our mistakes. However, God never intended for us to live in a state of daily regret, as if having a sense of constant regret is some sort of penance we deserve. But the answer is found in dealing with “WHAT IS”!

How often we forget that as a committed follower of Christ we are under the watch care and authority of a sovereign God. God does not work in some fantasy world of “if only” but in the concrete world of what is. Malcolm Smith says, “The fact is, no one knows what might have been. All we do know is that the infinitely good God will take the mistake and turn it for good.”

Guyon writes: “Remember you must never blame man for anything. No matter what happens, it was neither man nor circumstances that brought it. You must accept everything, (except, of course, you own sinfulness), as having come from the Lord.”

The ‘what ifs’ of our life become the foundation blocks that build Christ-like character. Wisdom teaches us that what might have been isn’t – so we must embrace what life is now.

I am reminded of the passage of Scripture in Proverbs 23:7; “As a man thinks in his heart so is he.” We are what we set our mind upon. If we continually languish in the world of “what if”, then the cloud of what “could have been” will keep us from moving on in life. We become stuck in the mud of regret and the world of “what if.”

Face it; you can’t take back the words you said. You can’t redo a marriage that ended in a nasty divorce. You can’t reclaim that missed opportunity or get back the failed investment. But you can see God in the failure – but only if you let go of the past.

“But this one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”(Philippians 3:13-14 NAS)

Somehow I believe that when Paul wrote this verse in Philippians he was thinking of the time he held Stephen’s coat while he cheered on the crowd that was stoning him. Don’t you think that he had replayed that event over and over in his mind, and thought, “what if” I had not been in that town on that day?” But somehow, by God’s grace and forgiveness he was able to lay down the “what ifs” of the past and focus on the prize of knowing and serving Christ.

Or what about Peter when Jesus and his family needed him the most, he ran, he lied that he knew Him and he denied he was a disciple? Do you think Peter also had regrets? Yes, I am sure he did, but he was able to receive Jesus’ forgiveness and become an example of graceful suffering.

Are you holding on to some personal “what ifs”? If so, let it go, and lay it at the foot of the cross, receive God forgiveness, and ask Him to take your regrets and turn them in to a fruitful future.

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Waiting on God

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it could go no further. So the man decided to help the butterfly. He cut off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly soon emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man expected that the wings would enlarge and expand to support the body, which would contract in time, but neither happened. Instead the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never flew. In his kindness and haste the man didn’t understand that the restricting cocoon was God’s way of forcing fluid from the butterfly’s body into its wings, so that it could fly once free from the cocoon.

Sometimes our struggles are exactly what we need. If God allowed us to go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong and we could never fly! With our flesh we fight life’s struggles. We are impatient during the learning curves. We fail to understand that our obstacles are the very thing that allows us to soar. Jesus said, “If you reign with me you will suffer with me”. The context of this verse has to do with becoming a true disciple. That means suffering, by way of life’s struggles, is necessary to be called a legitimate disciple of Jesus Christ.

I like to refer to our daily struggles as God’s way of bringing a little brokenness. Sometimes that means a sense of “momentarily being out of control.” Being out of control gives us a feeling of having no place to turn but God. That’s exactly where God wants us to be – acting on our faith and trust in Him. Besides, even if the struggle and discomfort is a direct attack from the enemy, God always means it for good.

Joseph had the proper perspective when he explained to his brothers, “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” So next time you get in a jam – don’t try to exit from the cocoon too soon, more struggle may be necessary. Wait on God’s natural timing so you can fly.

“Consider it all joy, my brother, when you encounter various trials, know that the testing’s of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)

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It’s About Perspective

This week I would like to convey something practical, or as my daddy use to say, “some good ole horse sense”. Sometimes as believers we are guilty of spiritualizing every little event that happens in our life, attributing it to the devil or the Lord’s hand. But more often than not, it’s just life – combined with our poor decision making. I am not minimizing the possibility that we may encounter from time to time demonic attacks, nor am I discounting certain seasons of suffering, God’s hand of brokenness.is often at work in our life, but when it’s from God, the events usually involve things in which we have no control.

I have often heard during a counseling session, “Why did God do this to me, placing me in this marriage, this town or this job? I have hated this for so many years?”

God is certainly omnipotent and able to place us in difficult places if He chooses. But if we take a closer look, most of those unpleasant situations are of our own making. The above statement is a prime example of unjustly blaming God for our poor personal decisions.

Statistics have proven that most people who find themselves up against the wall financially are there because of heavy indebtedness and or financial mismanagement. Any hiccup in cash flow puts them in dire straits. We often blame the devil for something we could have changed or prevented. (Are we giving the devil too much credit for decisions we make all on our own?)

God does not micromanage the little details of our lives. Our decisions or our times of indecision, has led us to where we are today. But that is hopeful, because you can make new decisions that will put you in different circumstances. God gives us the ability to make choices. Don’t wait for some supernatural movement – just start by seeing what you can do to change your circumstances.

If it is a job change you need, then take steps to prepare yourself for a change. Start by discovering your natural giftedness, identify your strengths and then search for a job that matches your giftedness and strengths. God has specifically wired us to be fulfilled in our work – but we must discover how He has naturally gifted us.

If debt is a problem then locate someone who can help you develop a plan to get out of debt. (Like Dave Ramsey) You don’t have to be a slave to indebtedness, there is a way out.

If you are burdened with a deteriorating relationship don’t crumple in despair, take proactive steps to rekindle and repair the relationship. If you are suffering from loneliness don’t sit at home all day long, but get out and mingle and think of creative ways to meet new people. If you do your part while asking the Lord to lead you, he will bring special people across your path that you can both enjoy and inspire.

Sometimes we assume that our current situation reflects random, individual, disconnected events. But seldom is that true. Rather, we are where we are because each decision we make is a step in a particular direction. And over time that direction determines our position in our work, our finances, our health, our relationships and our spiritual well-being. If you think God did this to you, then it justifies doing nothing until God changes your situation. And in doing nothing I see people open the door to blaming, resentment, anger, guilt and depression. I think God deserves better from us.

What my point? Life is about perspective. It’s like the story of two shoe salesmen traveling to a foreign country to sell shoes. The first salesman called immediately and said, “Get me on the next plane home. No one here wears shoes.” The second salesman called back and said, “Send me our entire inventory. No one here wears shoes.”

The same mind that thinks thoughts of doom, rejection, and discouragement is the same mind that can be creative, positive, and full of endless ideas, hope and faith. Which way will you use your God-given mind?

Perspective: It’s looking at your circumstances as an opportunity for change and improvement. Seize the moment, change your perspective and take action. Don’t be a victim of your circumstances but let your circumstances be your motivation for positive and productive change. Every cloud has a silver lining, but it takes trust in a sovereign God to lead you, and your diligence to take instinctive steps toward a better quality of life.

“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7)

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Running The Race

Hebrews 12:1-2

In Hebrews 12 the writer gives a sports analogy to convey the importance of keeping our eyes on Jesus. Reading through this passage reminded me of how contemporary the Scriptures are on today’s issues and problems. Believers everywhere are filled with anxiety, fear, doubt, unforgiveness and a multitude of other spiritual and emotional maladies that keep us from “fixing our eyes on Jesus”. There are several key elements of this passage that we need to heed in order to keep our eyes fixed on the goal.

1. “A great cloud of witnesses” – We are not alone in the race. The Greek word “great” is nephele which indicates an earth encompassing cloud. The context suggests that these witnesses are the heroes of the faith mentioned in chapter 11. We are in this race not only with other believers here on earth, but also the saints of heaven are cheering us on. Even though we may feel alone, we are never alone in the race.

2. “Let us lay aside every weight” – A runner never allows things to weigh them down. Every piece of clothing down to the weight of the shoe plays a vital role in running the race. Sometimes the things that weigh us down are not sinful things but the things that are not best for us. Often good things must be laid down in order for the best to be used in the race.

3. “Let us run with patience the race…” – The word race is the Greek word agon in which we get our English word agony. The emphasis is a long distance race. I remember running my first timed mile in junior high school. Agony would perfectly describe the experience. In the spiritual race the pace is set by God and the goal is not heaven. Heaven is settled by faith in the finished work of Jesus on the Cross. The goal is pleasing God by obedience. Along the way agony appears in the form of trials, disappointments and temptations. This race is not a 100 yard dash but a marathon.

4. “Looking unto Jesus” – This is an intent gaze upon Jesus. It’s keeping our eyes fixed on Him during the race, irrespective of the position of the rest of the runners. The race is not about how fast we finish because the pace is set by our Heavenly Father. Rather the race is based on how faithful we are at keeping our focus on Jesus along the way. Each one of us has a race to run and our focus is not to be on how our brother or sister runs the race. That’s the reason the scripture admonishes us to not compare ourselves with others.

1. If you want to be disappointed look to others
2. If you want to be discouraged focus on yourself.
3. If you want to be delighted focus on Jesus.

Since God knows from the foundation of the world who will become his child, the events that determine our race and our pace may even begin before we become a believer. We see an example of this principle at work in Nee Wheng-hsiu:

Famous missionary Watchmen Nee’s mother, Nee Wheng-hsiu, had plans to go to medical school in the USA. But at the last minute her mother arranged a marriage contract for her. The marriage was everything she feared about an arranged marriage- abuse and marriage to someone she didn’t love. Her sorrow drove her to Christ. After her conversion she approached her 17 year old son Watchman and confessed her sin of being too harsh in her discipline of him. Watchman was taken by surprise. This behavior was not only unusual but it was also uncommon in the Chinese culture. Because of his mother’s transformation Watchman Nee also gave his life to Christ. His impact on China is felt even today throughout China.

Like Nee Wheng-hsiu, our race may contain tragedy, disappointment and even regret, but it is our race, and it is orchestrated by God. Only as we keep our eyes fixed on Christ will we realize the reward of the peace of God in the midst of the race, and the eventual fulfillment of His will and purpose for our life.

“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. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith… Hebrews 12:1-2a (NASB)

Larry