The Race of Life – Tactics 1 and 2 – We’re off and Running!

Posted by Buck Jacobs on Nov 25th, 2009 | no comments home title

To be successful in running the race of life we have to stay on the track and know where the finish line is. If we get off the track the best we can hope for is that we will lose and waste time and, since we only get to run our race once, that is costly. To succeed, and post our personal best, will need to train and to focus and to keep looking straight ahead for the tape. We can’t afford to listen to the noise of the crowd or to look away even for a moment. The race is too important, it’s to our destiny.

We get on the track when we join the Master’s team and He assigns us the Trainer that will be with us through the race. From the moment we step on the track we are off and running! Our Trainer runs as one with us. He recognizes the snares and entanglements that will trip us or slow us down and coaches us on which tactic we need to avoid them. He knows the length of the race and how we need to run to have our personal best time. He knows the prize that waits for us and is totally committed to our winning it. He uses 6 basic training techniques, each designed to increase our strength and endurance as we stride, stride, stride, pant, stride… Running…Running our race…

The first building block or tactic is to Develop and fight to hold the Eternal Perspective of Life. Confusion about our ultimate purpose as children of God , as eternal beings living on Earth only temporarily as Ambassadors for Christ, with the temporal values and perspectives of our worldly culture will always cause us to stumble. If we don’t get this clear, and keep it clear, we will be distracted and confused and will veer off the track. We are each unique and eternal beings sent here to do eternally important things…

“We are not physical beings who have occasional spiritual experiences, we are spirit beings who are having a temporary physical experience.” (T. DeChardin)

We can never hear too often that this world is not our home, it’s values are not our values. Don’t be deceived! There is no fellowship between light and darkness, and no compromise between the eternal perspective of life and the worldly or fleshly perspective of life is insignificant. The fight to hold the eternal perspective is not a once-won battle, it is a continuing war. The weapons of our warfare, the tactics and tools that we need to succeed, are found in our effort to…..

Develop and fight to build intimacy with Jesus. We need constant reinforcement and renewal as we encounter the snares and entanglements of the world, the flesh, and the devil as we run. The wellspring of our strength to run and win is our relationship with Jesus. Nothing is more important! Not our ministry, not our relationships, not the things we do at church, not the time we spend with family, and certainly NOT the things we do at work! Spending the time we need to build intimacy with Him is the most important thing that we do. There is no hour in the day that is more important than the time that we spend with Him. And the primary purpose of the time that we spend with Him is to learn to have Him present in our thoughts every moment of every day! Not for just one hour, but every minute of every hour! If Jesus is first in our lives why not give Him the first hour of every day? Is He really first? Prove it. Live it!

Listen! There is NO easy way to run a long race. Races are hard! NO runner succeeds in running a long race without difficult and arduous training! We can’t even run a race, let alone run it well, without investing sweat blood and tears! Yes, everything else on our plates scream for our attention! Of course there are pressures that come against us! It has been so forever and every one of those who have run before us and finished their race successfully has had to fight just as hard. We have not, nor will we ever, develop through our modern technology or knowledge, an easy way to run the race of life in Christ! Never! We must constantly work to… (To be cont’d Tactic 3 &4)