Inspired to Greater Heights

This morning I'm writing again about the Christian life being a race. For some reason I keep going back to Hebrews 12:2-3. Every time I read these verses, I am encouraged through the hard times with the wisdom they impart. "Strip down, start running—and never quit!”, the writer to the Hebrews states. “No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls" (Hebrews 12:2-3, MSG).

Every day I need the spiritual adrenalin the Holy Spirit injects.. In these few verses in Hebrews, the Lord gives me the way to receive it. Keep my eyes on Jesus. Keep my eyes on the goal, the prize, the grand finish to come. When I find myself weary in faith, then I have taken my eyes off of Him, and allowed the hardship of life to pull me away from His protecting and guiding hand. Look at all He put up with! I might feel rejected. I know nothing about being shamed and feeling rejected. I might be battered by the enemy. I really can't comprehend the depth he fought the enemy and then won! I've never endured the pain of what He did for me on the cross. But if He endured, then I can also endure. The writer to the Hebrews imparts that going over and over what Christ did for me―reminding myself item by item―will give me the spiritual adrenalin to rise up and run my face. Just like a runner's body produces endorphin to sustain him, so does the Holy Spirit inject spiritual adrenalin to sustain me. As a runner catches a second wind at the moment he is about to give out, so I also catch the wind of His spirit when I need Him the most.

There is an end to this race. Christ attained that victory when He conquered sin and death. He now is with His father urging each one of us own to finish our own race. The Holy Spirit is my power to run the race bravely and rise above all the obstacles that hinder. Without His power, I will fail the course. If I focus on each obstacle, then my eyes are not on Him, but on the problem the obstacle presents. I will keep my eyes on Jesus Christ, the beginner of this faith in my heart, and allow Him to bring it to completion. I will never let this race of life defeat, and rob me of the promise at the finish. I will let it inspire me to greater heights. I will run it with perseverance, and with every part of me broken and spilled out―just as He was for me.