–Louis L’Amour (We Shaped the Land with Our Guns)
“Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us.”
“Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us.”
–Hebrews 12:1 (Amplified)
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Abram, get up and go! How would you react if God spoke to you to go? Most people would make excuses, or think about how they would have to pack everything. To the land where God is telling you to go, you take nothing but yourself. Don’t be a settler, learn to burn the bridges behind you, and don’t linger in the past. Yes, the way may be hard at that time, but that is no reason to look back wishfully. A.W. Tozer puts it this way, “From the effort to understand, we must not turn back because the way is difficult and there are no mechanical aids for the ascent. The view is better farther up and the journey is not one for the feet but for the heart.”
We are heading for a better world, a “city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10, NIV) We are far too often earthly-minded than heavenward bound. We live in this world, but we are not part of the world system. We cannot, we must not give into hideous and false cultural ideologies. I wonder, more and more, that what would happen if we would think as much and as often about spiritual things as about the things in this life. We are to be spiritually minded. True, as Francis Schaeffer said, “True spirituality covers all reality,” we should live with the view of the Spirit, a biblical worldview if you please, regarding the things of this world. Perhaps we should think, as John Owen said, “What would you think of a person who pretends that he is journeying to another country where he has an inheritance and yet whose whole conversation is about the trifling things he has to leave behind when he goes?”
Where is your hope? Where is your inheritance? Where is your home? “Let us…for the love of God, encourage ourselves to go on, and leave our reasons and our fears in His hands. Let us forget this natural weakness which occupies us so readily… Our only task is to journey on with good speed so that we may see the Lord.” (Teresa of Avila) So keep your focus, keep up a steady pace and run “with endurance the race that is set before us.”
——————————–
Abram, get up and go! How would you react if God spoke to you to go? Most people would make excuses, or think about how they would have to pack everything. To the land where God is telling you to go, you take nothing but yourself. Don’t be a settler, learn to burn the bridges behind you, and don’t linger in the past. Yes, the way may be hard at that time, but that is no reason to look back wishfully. A.W. Tozer puts it this way, “From the effort to understand, we must not turn back because the way is difficult and there are no mechanical aids for the ascent. The view is better farther up and the journey is not one for the feet but for the heart.”
We are heading for a better world, a “city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10, NIV) We are far too often earthly-minded than heavenward bound. We live in this world, but we are not part of the world system. We cannot, we must not give into hideous and false cultural ideologies. I wonder, more and more, that what would happen if we would think as much and as often about spiritual things as about the things in this life. We are to be spiritually minded. True, as Francis Schaeffer said, “True spirituality covers all reality,” we should live with the view of the Spirit, a biblical worldview if you please, regarding the things of this world. Perhaps we should think, as John Owen said, “What would you think of a person who pretends that he is journeying to another country where he has an inheritance and yet whose whole conversation is about the trifling things he has to leave behind when he goes?”
Where is your hope? Where is your inheritance? Where is your home? “Let us…for the love of God, encourage ourselves to go on, and leave our reasons and our fears in His hands. Let us forget this natural weakness which occupies us so readily… Our only task is to journey on with good speed so that we may see the Lord.” (Teresa of Avila) So keep your focus, keep up a steady pace and run “with endurance the race that is set before us.”