RR “Endurance for the Race” Part 4 by Jerry Miller

Shavuah Tov {{firstName}},

“Endurance for the Race” Part 4
by Jerry Miller

Hebrews 12:1-2a Therefore, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also get rid of every weight and entangling sin. Let us run with endurance the race set before us, focusing on Yeshua, the initiator and perfector of faith.

I’ve been sharing recently on the importance of “endurance (for) the race set before us…”  As believers we can find that there can be “weights and sins” that hold us back, depleting our spiritual strength and affecting our stamina for the “race of life.”  God wants us to live and walk out our life in Yeshua in ways that draw upon the empowerment He makes available to us.  It is God’s grace to offer us this empowerment, but it is not something we experience “automatically” just because we believe in Yeshua as our Messiah and our salvation. 

Again, as believers, we must be alert to the potential for our lives to be loaded down with both weights and sins.  Sins, of course, are those attitudes or actions that are clear violations of God’s righteous ways, as taught throughout His Word.  I believe the “weights” are activities or allowances that may not be inherently sinful but nevertheless serve to distract us from Yeshua as our first love.  As such, they can weigh down our hearts in ways we may not even perceive.  The impact of weights can be much more subtle in our lives than the impact of blatant sin, for the simple reason that the weights are not always clearly identifiable as being wrong.  Thus, well-intentioned believers can feel the desire to live a life of fervent love for the Lord but can find themselves impaired by weights in their lives.  When this is the case, one’s spiritual life will tend to be wavering between high and low points.

One might experience special times of getting “fired up” and inspired, only to find that the fire always seems to go out.  We might go to a retreat or conference and have a “mountain top experience,” but soon after, we feel like we are back “in the valley.”  How does this happen, where we can be stirred and impacted by God’s Spirit, but find that our lives can remain virtually unchanged?  I think part of the problem lies in the fact that we do not truly perceive the nature of God’s workings in our lives.  In the “mountain top experiences,” I believe we could say that God is igniting a spark in our hearts.  But we can make the mistake of thinking the spark is actually a burning flame.  Having been powerfully touched, we assume the flame is now alive in us and that nothing will extinguish it.  We expect that we will never again return to our old ways, now that we’ve been touched by the Lord.  But here is what I think we must see.  When impacted by the Lord, we are then responsible for seeking Him with greater diligence so that the initial work of the “flame” can become deeper and more powerful.  We tend to expect our mountain top experience to carry us into greater victory, wrongly assuming the experience is sufficient to thrust us forward into new spiritual heights.  But again, the experience was just a spark that we must then fan into a flame.  The spark is fanned into a flame in the context of a lifestyle of pursuit of God and abiding in Yeshua, as He teaches us in John 15.

Think about it. Just as in the natural realm, a flame will go out if not tended to, the same is true in our spiritual life.  When we don’t recognize this principle, we can find ourselves growing discouraged, wondering why we struggle to maintain an ongoing passion for the Lord.  Too often, the reason is that the subtle working of weights and sins in our lives is holding us back, extinguishing the spark that God has graciously initiated.  I believe the mountain top experiences, or personal encounters with the Lord, are intended by God to encourage and motivate us so that we will respond by living in such a way as to fan the flames of spiritual passion in our hearts and lives.  How do we do this?  The answer is simple, and yet, filled with challenges, as the devil will do all he can to oppose us in our pursuit of the Lord.  The simple answer is seen in the Hebrews passage cited above.  We are to be “focusing on Yeshua,” pursuing Him daily in a growing relationship of love.  In this relationship, there are times when we will feel stirred and energized, but there may also be times when we feel little or nothing in terms of the pleasure and presence of God.  But always remember, our feelings do not determine the reality and quality of our relationship with God.  What is important is the faith and love that drives us to continue to seek Him and pursue Him with all our hearts.  In such pursuit, we will find ourselves growing, not only in our relationship with Him, but growing as well in our endurance for the race we are running.

I encourage you to be spending time daily, simply expressing love and adoration to the Lord…spending time daily exalting His holy Name and declaring His greatness.  Spend time with Him, learning to rest in His presence and His goodness.  In this pursuit of God, we will most certainly encounter challenges and distractions that work to hinder our spiritual life, but if we press in to God, always keeping our eyes on Yeshua, we will find grace for overcoming the challenges and distractions.  Let us be a people who continue to fan the flame of love in our hearts, for the One who Himself loves us with a love that is beyond comprehension.  He is worthy of nothing less.

Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
Sun14 Sep 202521st of Elul, 5785 
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