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Unrestrained for the Heavenly

It doesn't matter how heavy your burden is if you are in the will of God yoked up with Jesus. If you are pursuing things orderly, the burden is light. "Lay aside every weight" (Heb. 12:1). When is it a weight? It is a weight when it has the wrong value on it, when you've made it a treasure, or when you are carrying it in your own strength. Is it a weight when it is robbing the glory of God. At other times we can carry that same thing, whatever it is--a job, a house, a salary, recognition from peers. Many times we can carry that and the burden is light because we are yoked up with Jesus and we're in the will of God. It becomes a weight that has to be set aside when it is restraining us from that life pattern that great cloud of witnesses had. What are you carrying at this moment that needs to be set aside? Where and what is the prize before us?

Lay aside every weight and the sin. We know what sin is. Sin is missing the mark. Sin isn't an action, behavior or an inanimate object. Sin is transgression of the law. "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:17). Sin is when you know to do good and you don't do it; Sin isn't just doing evil. All unrighteousness is sin (1 John 5:17). We are to lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily besets us. Are we transgressing the law, living unrighteously, which means self-righteously? Are we living a good, disciplined life by self and for self, or have we embraced the cross, dead to self-will, self-ability and self-confidence? For me to live is Christ, and now I am living by the faith of the Son of God. Now I am living by "faith-righteousness," righteousness which is by faith, not of works or of the law. I know what God expects me to do. I know who He wants me to hang out with. I know what is to be reprioritized in my life, and I plan on getting around to it. Lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily beset us. It is very important to realize the danger of these besetting sins surrounding us, confining us, restraining us, and holding us captive.

How will you get out of this mess? "Run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame..." (Heb. 12:1-2). A lot of us aren't living for heaven. We are living for good families, good relationships, peace of mind, health and prosperity. The joy set before us is the joy of seeing His face one of these days. Can you say there is a true longing--a heartache, a hunger, an anticipation, an excitement--for the trumpet of God to sound, for the immediate changing and everything in this life vanish? You finally get to see the face of Jesus! We will see Him and be like Him. It's not just seeing Him; it's being like Him. For Jesus the joy was just being Himself, expressing love to the unlovely. The joy for Him was not something future, because He lives in the ever present now. God is eternal. The Man Jesus, the Incarnate One, has always had joy. He put limitations upon Himself by becoming flesh and dwelling among us. Because we are not eternal beings, there is a future joy that is far greater than anything that restrains us and holds us captive to momentary pleasures. What have we done with our value system?

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