Daily Devotional

Word of the Day

Are You Pushing Yourself?

Run with patience the race set before you. Patience not only means endurance but also carries a strong meaning of consistency. Are you repetitively making preparation to grow and to draw closer to the Lord? Are you consistently heading toward the mark, the prize, the high calling of God in Jesus Christ? Or do you find yourself coasting? Do you find yourself in neutral sometimes? You need to examine your own heart, but don't make the mistake of judging yourself by your intentions, and don't just evaluate yourself by what you have accomplished in the past.

Hebrews 12 admonishes us that we have a great cloud of witnesses. Those people are our examples. What made these people champions? Nowhere does Paul say that you get a participation trophy. We are all running for the prize (1 Cor. 9:24). In other words, everyone is responsible to pursue for the championship, to win, and to be the best that he can be. Are you constantly and consistently preparing yourself and actively participating to be better than you were yesterday? Are you improving? Are you growing? If you are spiritually alive and you are hanging out in the right environment, you should be growing. If not, then you are embracing the world system and are actually experiencing death.

Many of us grew up never having been pushed toward anything. It's so easy for us to say we're doing our best. Have you ever been pushed physically or spiritually beyond the limitations set in your own mind? If you are not pushing yourself, then it is not worth anything. Most of the other things in life you wanted, you have made an effort to get. How about Christlikeness? How about less of the carnal, the natural man, that existed yesterday? How about forgetting the things that are behind? I press toward the mark, forgetting those things that used to be important. I forget the pursuits that I used to have, counting them loss for the knowledge of Christ. Has there been a conscious reevaluation and reprioritizing in our lives? It has to be conscious. I forget those things. I reevaluate the things that I used to hold dear and were important to me. We're talking about a life of temperance, discipline and self-control.

As we look at the great cloud of witnesses, we have no excuses. They have gone on, accomplished it, and have shown us how to succeed by daily embracing the cross. Some of them were delivered, and some of them died; but it was all in faith. A lot of us are afraid to go out there and put it all on the line because we might die or be branded a failure. You can die in faith and be a success. It's not about living or dying; it's about abiding in Christ. It's about doing what we're doing by faith, because without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). Faith is contrary to natural reason because it calls things that are not as though they were. Faith is the evidence of things not seen. The promise of God is sufficient to motivate us whether we ever obtain it in this life or not. We are fully aware that we are living in the approval of God. We are apprehending that for which we have been apprehended--a life in the Spirit.

We have this great cloud of witnesses as our examples. We are compassed about (surrounded) by these folks. We are part of them. Because of that, then lay aside every weight--anything that would slow you down. Since it is a marathon and not a sprint, what at this moment is hindering me from the momentary prize of consistent growth?

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