Do you ever feel like you're running the race but not getting anywhere? Do you ever feel like you're expending a lot of energy, but not getting nowhere?
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.
(1Co 9:24-27).
I'd like to share a few things with you this week on running the race. The first is that if you're running God's race you need to be temperate, or self-controlled, in all things (same word used in 1 Cor 7:9 regarding control of one's sexual desires). One thing that causes us to exhaust ourselves and get nowhere is when we refuse to see our fleshly attitudes for what they are and to submit them to the obedience of the word of God. If you don't submit your thoughts and attitudes and desires to the teaching of the word of God, you will become a spiritually undisciplined runner who relies on others to constantly provide the correction, and 'others' just can't do the job of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one that knows your heart, and lives with you day to day. The Holy Spirit works through the word of God (Eph. 6:17), and through the word of God we receive our constant cleansing (John 15:3).
Stay in the Word, submit to the Word, and run on the Word.
Yours in Him,
Pastor B.
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