Finishing Well

Did you know that the Lord is not all that interested in how you started your "race".  His main interest is in how we finish the race.  

I know people who began their walk of faith with Jesus Christ who stumbled and fell with great regularity.  It looked like a "false start" but then they picked themselves up, sometimes with the helping hand of a fellow runner, dusted themselves off and put one foot in front of the other and kept at it. 

Living a life of faith in Jesus Christ is not a life of perfection, it is a life of faith, hope and utter dependance on the One on whom our faith depends from start to finish.

In Hebrews chapter 12, following Jesus is compared to running a Marathon . Anything that adds weight or interferes with one's stride and pace is jettisoned at the starting line. You will never see a marathon runner carrying luggage of any kind as they run. They wear the lightest clothes and the lightest, most durable running shoes.

They run like they mean it!

The main concern is not how fast they get off the line, but how they pace themselves, how they persevere through the grueling course and most of all how they finish. If you have begun to follow Jesus, you are meant to finish the race and  finish well. The only way to do that is to fix your eyes on Jesus, the One on whom your faith depends from start to finish.

St. Paul stated in Philippians 3:12 that he was still running, he hadn't yet come to perfection. He knew that Jesus would finish the good work that He had begun. St. Paul's part was to press on, keep following in faith, running the race Jesus had called him to run so as to take hold of that for which Jesus had taken hold of him.   

When St. Paul wrote this , he wasn't at the finish line yet. He could remember the times he had stumbled and fallen. He could recall the bite of the gravel on his knees and hands. We all fall down, but we have to get up! One stumble does not disqualify the runner. Get up!

St. Paul urges fellow runners to forget what lies behind and to strain forward to what lies ahead; to keep running. Our spiritual adversary continually reminds us of where we have stumbled and wants us to be so focused on what happened in the past, that by looking backward, we are assured of tripping and falling again. To mix metaphors, you have put your shoulder to the plow...don't look back! Those are Jesus' words in Luke 9:62! Keep your eyes on Jesus!

Seasoned runners will tell you that the length of the race can itself become a discouragement. They can't see the finish line. So they pick out a landmark somewhere out in the distance and race towards that. Each segment of the race adds up and because Jesus is leading us, having run the same course and finished in the glory of His Resurrection, He knows perfectly how to assist us to run well...to finish well.

You are not alone in this race. There is a great cloud of witnesses already in Heaven who have finished the course. There is a great throng of fellow runners who are with you now. Don't straggle in self pity or regret at the back or the pack. Run in the middle of the pack, in the fellowship of other followers of Jesus Christ. 

In the wild, it's the stragglers at the back of the herd that are most vulnerable to attack from the roaring lion. When you run with others in fellowship you can encourage one another, steady one another, even strengthen "weak arms and feeble knees" so that no one falls out. 

You have today. Trust Jesus with the whole of it. Run as one who is destined to win the prize or the high calling you have in Christ Jesus! Fix your eyes on Jesus! RUN!

He Will Interfere!

Living as a follower of Jesus entails so much more than we ever could have imagined. At 19 years of age when Jesus revealed Himself to me, I saw that I was dead without Him. Now, 42 years later, I continue to be amazed at HOW dead I was and how I still need spiritual "debridement” to be rid of the non-life stuff that still tends to cling to my daily living.

Salvation is a reality given to us as a gift from God by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. It's also a way of living, a process of extending what God has planted in me, that new heart and spirit, into every aspect of my life.

We are given this new life to live in power so we can follow Him. It's rather just like a pilgrimage. On a pilgrimage, there are times when, though the road is more or less level, but the distance to cover is long and hard. There are other times it almost seems overwhelming when the walk becomes a mountainous climb over less than pleasant sharp rocks.

The call from Him is to walk with Him in His power, not ours. Life as it is meant to be known and lived cannot be lived in human strength. We have to face the reality that we are not our own; we are His: spirit, mind, will, emotion and body. There is no dimension of our lives that Jesus is disinterested in. He lives His life in us to do a thorough work of rescue, restoration and transformation. What we find it that He can be quite "interfering", to say the least.

You know we are accustomed to doing things our own way. We've grown "used" to them, even when doing things our own way has produced less than satisfying results. It's what we know and so we stubbornly plow on in our own familiar insanity thinking that THIS time, things will come out differently. Insane, I say, because our ways will never get us to the place the Lord has prepared for us.

His intent is not that we somehow eke by, somehow making it by the "skin of our teeth". St. Pauls makes it very clear that in Christ we are MORE than conquerors...super-victors...through HIM who loves us. It is a great comfort to me to know that, "He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion by the Day of Christ."

Life is not easy because the world is broken. It is not easy because we are the cause of its brokenness. It's not easy because the residue of our old natures (Scripture calls it "the flesh") colludes with sin to try and keep it alive in us...keep us drinking the "Kool-Aid". The Light of Christ is utterly penetrating and will not let us live in any degree of self-deception. Jesus will come in like a hurricane to blow away what we think is shelter so that we learn not to continue building our lives on "sand".

Jesus will interfere with our lives so that we might really live. He'll interfere with our schedules, our relationships, our finances, our time, our recreation...anything that would keep us from knowing...living the full life and destiny He has for us. There is so much more that He has for you and me that Sunday worship and occasional fellowship gatherings or prayer gatherings. He wants to fill you with Himself, to give you eyes to see as He sees, a heart that is moved as His heart it and power to make a marked difference in the lives of people who do not yet know Him.

If you are experiencing the interference of Jesus, do not resist...yield and surrender. We have to learn dependence, trust and perseverance. God is doing in us what we could never accomplish...ever. The Light of Christ has come not merely to expose the darkness, but to expel it and free us from its influence!

I am so glad He keeps interfering. We'd be lost without Him.