Today's Passage: Hebrew 12

The first 3 verses of this chapter are some of the most widely know of the New Testament.  In fact I'm sure many of you are familiar with ALL of chapter 12.  The comparison of living a life of faith to a footrace is very popular among New Testament writers.  Some modern day writers have tried to adapt this example to make it easier to understand in our culture, but I believe the writer if Hebrews gave the best possible version.

If you maintain the footrace metaphor throughout the end of this chapter it would say something like this:  Use Jesus as your pace and path setter; Be open to your running coach's (God's) instructions for it is by those instructions that you will be able to follow Jesus; His instructions may seem painful to begin with but if you follow them you will run even more like Jesus; Clear you path and keep it simple, that way if you or anyone else running with you has difficulty they will only have to battle the difficulty and not the path as well; Make peace with all runners, this will help promote your coach and cause others to run on the winning path;  Make sure you don't run too long with runners that aren't being trained by your coach, for they will cause you to run off coarse; See to it that no matter what happens around you during the race that you continue to follow Jesus' example and listen to your coach, for all other paths are temporary and will not lead to the finish line; Instead with respect and awe offer to your coach your best run and don't hold back.

We are all in this "race" whether we know it or not.  The good news is no matter what mistakes we have made thus far in the race.  Our coach has made his instructions readily available and Jesus never runs off and leaves us behind.  So run the race today, free yourself from the sin that is holding you back, and have confidence even when God's discipline is tough.  For by living this way you solidify your place at the finish line in Heaven.