Day Twenty
“Run With Endurance”
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
Congratulations! You have made it halfway through this challenge. By this time the initial enthusiasm we all started with is beginning to wane as we get into the daily grind of living, praying, and seeking to maintain an unwavering faith. I hope that today we can all gain some practical tools that would help us in our fight for faith and as we watch God do the impossible things all around us.
Let me first encourage you that we are not the first ones to walk this path. Many have been called to live lives of faith and to trust God for impossible things. I encourage you to read through Hebrews 11 and do a little research on the people listed in that chapter. We have been surrounded by a great host who have gone before and who kept the faith in spite of impossible odds and dangerous circumstances. I am referring to people like Hudson Taylor, George Mueller, Reese Howells, John Hyde, David Yongii Cho, and many, many others. Reading about their lives, but more importantly about how the Lord intervened in their lives, can inspire our faith and help us as we run the race.
We need next to lay aside some encumbrances that hinder us as we follow the Lord. There are good and innocent things that distract us, but now more than ever our focus and hunger should be God. Let us not be distracted by good things but lay all distractions aside so that we might hunger for God more, spend more time in pursuit of Him, pray longer in the secret place, and have a stronger, more enduring faith. I say “a stronger and more enduring faith” because it is essential in the days ahead that our faith continues to grow and to endure to the end. That will only happen as we lay aside encumbrances that seek to divert our attention and our energies from our spiritual goal of knowing Christ and gaining answers to our prayers.
We must be vigilant about keeping guard over our hearts, preventing sin from stealthily sneaking in to cause us to stop running, to quit believing, and to give up this challenge. This is more than a forty-day challenge, it is a life challenge. These forty days are just small, bite-sized measurable parts of the race of life that help us to become more clearly focused. Sin only serves to bring us into spiritual death rather than the life and pleasure it promises.
This morning the Lord woke me at 3:30 a.m. to seek Him and continue writing this material. Though I enjoyed my time in the secret place with Him I have also had to fight through the sins of listlessness, mental wanderings, laziness, and ill use of my time. I have wanted to do many things more than I have wanted to sit down to write this chapter. Many things have looked more enticing: books, emails, the headline news. I have had to see these things as sin that would keep me from obeying God in finishing this book in a timely matter.
Our adversary will never rest. He is always seeking to entangle us and to trap us in the snare of sin so we will prove to be ineffective in seeking and serving God. Let us be well reminded that while we give harbor to sin in our souls our prayers will prove to be ineffective. “If I regard wickedness in my heart, the Lord will not hear.” (Psalm 66:18)
We must fight against sin with ferocity. We must labor endlessly to protect our minds, our eyes, our ears, and our hearts from the gross and gruesome effects of sin. When our souls become dull, when our passion begins to wane, when unbelief begins to dominate, and when things seem enticing that used to be hated and avoided, we must be aware and sound the alarm that sin has entered the camp. We must declare all-out war on sin in our lives.
When we have been inspired by those who have gone before us, when we have set aside the encumbrances that distract us, and when we have fought against sin with all of our hearts, then we can run this race with endurance. Oh, how we need a faith that endures. We need a faith that endures longer than forty days and longer than forty years. We need a faith that will endure in the face of cancer, loveless marriages, rebellious children, wilderness experiences, devastating loss, cruelty to our children, injustice in the workplace, the temptation of sin, and a thousand other things we will be called to face in this life. We need a faith that keeps running, keeps believing, keeps trusting and remains confident in the worst circumstances, in the midst of tragedy and triumph as well as in pain or praise.
Christ set the example on the cross of not only enduring, but enduring with joy. He can give us that same enduring faith and spirit with a joyful attitude. How serious are you and I about finishing strong? I did not set out on this forty-day challenge only to fall by the wayside because the going got hard, there were obstacles along the way, or my prayer requests were slow to be answered. I did not set out on this relationship with Christ only to stagger across the finish line at the end of my life, out of breath, barely making it. I want to run harder as the days pass and the difficulties arise. May each of us be at a full sprint in our faith and devotion to Christ on the last day of our lives as we make our final lap in the race He has set before us. Others finished strong, and so can we.
Steps to Trust and Obey:
Can you identify any encumbrances in your life? What are they? In what ways do they distract you?
Who are the people who inspire you to keep trusting God and running the race? If they are still alive, why not write a little note or make a phone call to tell them?
Has sin infiltrated your soul? Spend some time in confession and cleansing your heart.
What is God speaking to you? What is your response to what He is saying to you?
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