{"id":3099,"date":"2024-02-23T03:03:05","date_gmt":"2024-02-23T03:03:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/?p=3099"},"modified":"2024-02-19T02:31:40","modified_gmt":"2024-02-19T02:31:40","slug":"run-the-race-finish-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/run-the-race-finish-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Run The Race: Finish It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong>Friday, February 23<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Run The Race: Finish It<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. <\/em><strong>Hebrews 12:1<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What rich inspiration we found this week as we read Hebrews 12. The brushstrokes of the first two verses paint a very clear picture in which we see ourselves as athletes, chosen to run the most important of all races, the race of the Christian life. It\u2019s not a short sprint, but a marathon, a race of endurance with important instructions on how to run it.<\/p>\n<p>First, we\u2019re encouraged to run with endurance and don\u2019t give up, implying this isn\u2019t a race where we won\u2019t encounter pain and strife. Then we are taught that by fixing our eyes on Jesus we can finish the race. If we \u201cfix our eyes on Jesus\u201d, and see the struggles in the light of who He is and what He has done for us, and with Him as our focus, bring the hard and painful realities to Him and receive His forgiveness and healing, then we will \u201cnot grow weary and lose heart\u201d (v.3). Instead we\u2019ll experience the real hope, joy and freedom of the life Jesus won for us, and we can look forward to being able to say, like Paul, \u201cI have finished the race, I have kept the faith.<\/p>\n<p>Then we were encouraged to think about those who\u2019ve gone before us, who have proved God\u2019s absolute faithfulness. That\u2019s such valuable advice, especially for times when the going gets tough. I love reading. At a time when I was facing really hard things in my life, I\u2019d feel like it was just too hard to keep going, or too long, or I was too weary, and I\u2019d come across a pearl of inspiration from the many books I\u2019ve come across as I read.<\/p>\n<p>Lastly, as athletes running the race, we\u2019re instructed to strip off things we\u2019re carrying that weigh us down, and sin that can easily trip us up. These can be things we\u2019ve brought with us from our past, things like false guilt, negativity, passivity, self pity \u2026 things we don\u2019t need to carry anymore, and if we do, will hinder us, holding us back in bondage as victims to past experiences, slaves to cruel masters of things like fear, guilt and shame \u2026 and living as orphans instead of sons and daughters.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Prayer for today<\/strong>: \u00a0<em>Dear Lord, please forgive me for the times when I\u2019ve ignored your instructions for running the race of my life. Today I choose to fix my eyes on You, not on the problems, yet not deny my struggles either, but bring them to you. For you have the answer. You are the answer. Thank you that you have given me your Holy Spirit and I don\u2019t have to run this race alone, but it is by your grace and enabling power. Amen.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friday, February 23 Run The Race: Finish It Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3099"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3105,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3099\/revisions\/3105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cornerstonecem.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}