The Race That Is Set Before Us

By William B. McGrath

In Hebrews 12:1 we read that we are to “run with patience the race that is set before us.” This refers to the race of life set before us by our Creator; it is each individual’s “high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).

By choosing the race God would have me to run, I can experience His presence inspiring me, coaching me, and helping me to become a winner in my race toward lasting, eternal goals. It is the most fulfilling of any race that I could occupy myself with. It is a race that He has tailored, custom fit, and created for me.  

This race includes the seemingly small things of everyday life and habits of thought and action that cultivate godliness. In the verse that follows, Hebrews 12:2, we read that as we run this race, we are to be “Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross.” So, I like to look to Jesus to see how He ran His race, and follow His example the best I can. I ask for His help to pick up my own cross daily (Matthew 16:24), through life’s little irritations, because there is an eternal reward set before me (John 14:3).

The hardships I pass through can be difficult to understand, but I know that my High Priest in heaven understands, and intercedes for me (Hebrews 4:15). He sees the end results of the hardships that He allows me to endure, He is “refining” me, He’s on my side. My “light afflictions” in this life work for me “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

As I abide in Jesus, through His Word, I am learning to cooperate with His Spirit’s promptings, letting go of my own will and following the direction His race is taking me. He gives me His strength to resist temptation and helps me to develop the fruits of His Spirit—love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (Galatians 5:22–23). I know that the best choice I ever made was to run His race throughout my life. I see more and more that it will turn out to be, by far, the most rewarding and enriching lifelong race that I could have ever imagined.

A race implies resistance, training, and other runners. I believe the main resistance that I face is that of my old earthbound nature. This race is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes persistence and patience on my part to dominate my old nature, which would tempt me to accept the common excuses for being lukewarm. I know I need God’s Spirit to wash and renew me and give me the strength to stay on course.

The world says: “Be a somebody. Climb the ladder of economic success, power, control, position! Have it all, now!” But Christ’s nature within us grants us things that money can’t buy—real peace, eternal life, and a part to play in drawing His suffering children on earth home to His love for them.

The Bible also compares our running in this race to the fight of a soldier (2 Timothy 2:3) and to the training of an athlete (1 Corinthians 9:24). It is not always easy, and personally I know that the greatest part of my struggle has been in my own mind, learning to consistently keep my pride in check. As the saying goes: “You are your own worst enemy.” I know that even as I run His race, there exists this desire to prove that I can do things, that I am knowledgeable, that I deserve esteem, etc. But throughout Christ’s ministry, it is clear that He demonstrated high regard for the commonplace and the common people—the humble, the poor, the beaten down, the stranger, etc. The twelve apostles He chose were common men, not the elite of society.

I would like to close with a couple of passages that express what it means to me to be running in this race that God has set before me.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). The greatest thing that any of us can do is not to live for Christ but to live Christ. What is holy living? It is Christ-life. It is not to be Christians, but Christ-ones. It is not to try to do or be some great thing but simply to have Him and let Him live His own life in us; abiding in Him and He in us, and letting Him reflect His own graces, His own faith, His own consecration, His own love, His own patience, His own gentleness, His own words in us. … This is at once the sublimest and the simplest life that it is possible to live. It is a higher standard than human perfection, and yet it is possible for a poor, sinful, imperfect man to realize it through the perfect Christ who comes to live within us. God help us so to live, and thus to make real to those around us the simplicity, the beauty, the glory and the power of the Christ life.—Charles E. Cowman¹

For most of us, there is a trivial round every day. The morning bell calls us to do the same routine of the commonplace, and there seems no chance for doing anything really heroic or worth having lived for. I wonder when we’ll ever learn the lesson that it’s doing some little duties of life faithfully, punctually, thoroughly, reverently, not for the praise of men, but for the “well done” of Jesus Christ, not for the payment to be received, but because God has given us a little place of work to do in His great world. Not because we must, but because we choose, not as slaves of circumstances, but doing it with the Lord in mind, doing it “as to the Lord and not unto men,” doing it as Christ’s freed ones (Colossians 3:23). Then far down beneath the surge of common life, the foundations of a character are laid. … We ought therefore to be very careful how we complain about the common tasks of daily life. … It’s a greater thing to do an unimportant thing with a great motive for God and for truth and for others than to do a great, important thing and do it with such a complaining spirit. It’s greater to suffer patiently each day a thousand stings than to die once as a martyr at the stake. An obscure life really offers more opportunities for the nurture of a loftier type of character, the growth of Christian graces, more opportunities than any greatness, such as men call greatness.—Virginia Brandt Berg²

Posted in: contentment, following god, guest contribution, patience, perseverance

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