Fixed
The Big Race
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Rescheduling Life Priorities
The passage from Hebrews mentioned that we run after Jesus Christ. We can ask ourselves what does this mean? 1 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, |
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There are different meanings to what it means to fix our eyes on Jesus. We cannot follow this up in detail here. However, there is the call for us to run the race while we fix our yes on Him. We might think of it in our limited context like this. We will not fix our eyes on those things that incite us to impurity but to being like Jesus. We are to remember how He ran the race. When professionals train, they often watch videos of others in action. They study the throw, the positions, the team work, the mistakes, the clinching move that won the game. We might think of Jesus here and how He won the race. We will win the race only to the degree we learn with Him. Fortunately, we have many good materials that help us understand how He did it including this passage. We see three things that he did. • For the joy set before Him endured the cross Jesus understood that their would be a cost to doing what God wants. But once it was set next to the joy that came with obedience, the choice was obvious. Do you choose: Love or lust Fulfillment or emptiness Security or loneliness? • Despised the shame Jesus needed to recognize the shame or stigma for going counter-world. But He deliberately rejected this shame. He saw it was the shame coming from the world. His chief concern was not what everyone thought but what God thought. He needed a larger perspective to do this, a perspective of what God wanted. • Sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus finished the job and was gloriously rewarded. The 'joy set before Him' came to be fulfilled when he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. We need to realize that there is an end to suffering. Great reward follows the short time of suffering. In each of these cases, what is needed is the same thing. We need to cultivate our commitment to God's glorious Word which brings a respect and broadening of God's perspective. We can see the way Jesus had memorized God's Word greatly helped and guided Him in the difficult decisions He took. We are not going to go into how to study God's Word for there are many ways and manners { }. The need is priority. We need to make reading, study, memory and meditating of God's Word. In the western world, if we make a clear cut with those forms of entertainment, then we have a lot of time we can use to take God's Word in our hearts. If we first committed to one hour of Bible in our lives each day, this would greatly help us. We could divide it up to 15 minutes reading of Psalms and Proverbs in the morning, 15 minutes of memorizing and reviewing the verse(s) that meant so much to you. 15 minutes of reading and meditating on some other passage. 15 minutes doing a bit in depth study on some particular thought (cross referencing, etc.). Part of this could be done in the evening when you otherwise would be watching some unhelpful show. There are no rules here except the more you seek, the more you will find. Effort is always rewarded. Set a schedule and keep to it. Review it once a month but don't change it because of your feelings. If you take away some bad habits, make sure you replace them with good habits. For example, you could make one evening an evening you could visit another family/person each week. |
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