What if running the race as a Christian is not what you imagined it to be!?
Running the race has very little to do with how much progress we make in the natural, but it has everything to do with our spiritual condition. As a Christian, running the race is about not giving up and not allowing our heart to fail despite of circumstances and setbacks!
Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4: 12-14
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2 Timothy 4:7
Paul describes our walk with God as a race that we must continually run. This race is not a competition against other people, but it’s about keeping the faith. The best way to describe it is to look at it as running a marathon. Most people who are not runners, wouldn’t dream of running a marathon let alone competing with others in one. The majority of people would be just happy to run 26.2 miles. Their concern is not to beat anyone else, but to just finish the long distance run.
Our spiritual lives are a lot like running a marathon. The road is lengthy. It has rough paths, steep hills, and some valleys, but through it all we are called not to give up. We have to keep our stamina to persevere. We want to reach the final goal of meeting our Lord and Savior as an overcomer who has kept the faith and enters into eternity with his/her Savior.
When Paul was penning the scriptures to the Philippi church, he could have been sitting in prison bound to a prison guard with no mobility whatsoever. Nevertheless he was running the race! He would have been very stationary physically but very alive in the spirit because his spirit man was running towards God. He did not turn back nor did he slow down. He didn’t stop but kept running towards God.
To walk like Paul did, we have to be strong and courageous in our spirit man and be willing to live in a state of spiritual momentum while in the natural be in a place of inactivity.
Thank about an area of your life where you feel tired of running the race. Ask the Lord to give you strength to try again and run some more.