How Well Are You Enduring Your Race?

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(Excerpt from Cheryl Gnagey's Spiritual Healing:  The Surrender That Brings Victory, Chapter 11)

We have been taking a closer look at the two "Let us" phrases found in Hebrews 12: 1-4.  Let me refresh your minds in regard to those two phrases.

     1.  Let us lay aside every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles us.
     2.  Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

I am making the second one the topic of today's blog.  I will continue to use a Greek dictionary to help us gain greater understanding into the phraseology of this verse.  Today, let's see what the Greek has to say about these 3 very important words:  run, endurance and race.

• Run -- to run or walk hastily having a course to run; specific to this verse, 'with strenuous effort.

Can you sense the urgency and intensity of this kind of running?  This kind of run will not be easy or leisurely.  The course referred to has already been set for us by God, and we will need endurance to finish His race.  [This definition begs an answer to this question:  Why do we, as believers, call our journey with God a 'walk'?  For me, to call it a walk infers that it is an easy-peasy trip!  And it isn't at all!  I think I may start labeling my 'walk' a 'run'.  That just might open a few doors to witnessing!]

• Endurance -- a patient continuing (waiting when necessary), bearing up under the strain with a tranquil mind, not surrendering to them (the sin and encumbrances).

Wow!  I had no idea that my endurance required a tranquil mind, set only on the hope of making it through!  I am not sure I have ever correctly endured!  But let me not just focus on the word 'tranquil'.  We must look at the other words in the definition in order to clearly understand what endurance is.  To endure will require something in me that says that I will keep going, no matter what.  I must stay the course with a constancy that patiently continues even when it is difficult, not just when it is easy.  This race is about learning to be obedient in all things.  When the Word speaks of not surrendering to those things that can entangle me, I must decide now to bear up when temptations, trials, and tests come, so that I can win the race by gaining victories over them.  And with that thought in mind, let move on to our third definition.

• The Race -- strife, contention, a struggle, a contest for victory or mastery, a contest against the enemies of man's salvation, much like the Greek games [Olympics].

Because satan wishes to thwart our efforts to gain victory or mastery over our sin ans stumbling blocks, our fight with him will require great effort.  Our enemy wants to keep us in our sin, maybe more than we want to be free of it.  Therefore, he will contend with us with every weapon in his arsenal.  We must learn to use our entire spiritual armor, and specifically the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, with even more effort and zeal than satan uses against us.

Do you see now shy it is so very important to understand God's Word in its original language [Greek and Hebrew]?  The Greek must be used to define the words of the New Testament; our English dictionaries just cannot fully get the job done!

Little By Little

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Israel would soon enter the Promised Land to conquer the people there. But God would not simply and swiftly destroy them. Instead, He told His chosen that it would happen "little by little," knowing that removing all of their enemies would leave them vulnerable. God wants permission to come into our hearts and destroy every one of His enemies, but it will be a process, little by little, until all are destroyed.

One of the hardest things for me in my spiritual journey is that the weeding out of the sinful overgrowth in my heart is taking a long time.  I want the flower bed to be free of weeds right now!  I have figured out that I cannot do the transforming; only the Spirit of God in me can.  But that means I have little say in when my transformation regarding a particular sin will be complete.  As a matter of fact, my only part in that is to surrender to His control, and obey when I hear His voice directing my pathway.

God, in His infinite wisdom, also knows that if I am to grow spiritually, that removing everything now would rob me of the ability to put down deep roots as I grow that will help me withstand the next temptation to fall to that sin.  Quick removal of all my sin would leave me quite vulnerable to the temptation.  When Moses was speaking to Israel about the "little by little" removal of the Canaanites from the land, he warned them that quick destruction of the people in the entire land would cause them to fall prey to the "wild beasts that will grow too numerous" for them.  The same principle is true for us!

God is utterly faithful, though.  By His Spirit His purpose and plan is to drive out every evil thing in us, until they are "utterly destroyed."  Little by little, He will do this as He watches us grow in our trust and faith in Him, and in our patience as well!