God created human beings in His image, and we are to walk in His love and live according to His nature. Every moment of each day presents an opportunity to become more like Him, and to respond to His goodness, love, and mercy with gratitude. This is His Will, that we spend the totality of our lives responding to what God has done for us. And the way that God has empowered us to respond to Him shouldn’t be overlooked. We are living spiritual beings with a soul, and He has created an extraordinary vessel, the human body, as a house for our spiritual being. We’re not to be docile, dormant, or live a flatline existence. He’s woven stamina and momentum within our bodies so that we can be lively, mobile, and enthusiastically shaking things up for His Kingdom and glory!
Hebrews 12:1(NLT) tells us, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.” The ‘huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith’ are the men and women whose records are in God’s Word. They were fully persuaded and sold-out in believing that God is who He says He is, and He will do what He said He will do. They used their lives to demonstrate their faith in God, and He expects us to not only learn from their examples, but to go higher in faith than even they did.
God also expects us to understand from Hebrews 12:1 that life is a very dynamic vehicle, and that He has dynamically equipped us to keep pace. Life is a race, and God tells us not to be slowed down by the weight of sin, but instead, we are to move through this race with endurance. This endurance is the stamina and momentum to keep pace with faith as we run the race that God has set before us. He makes it clear that He’s the One that sets the race, and it is not designed to move at a snail’s pace.
Life is full of unexpected bumps, detours, and wrong turns, and God has given us the indwelling Holy Spirit to guide us through all of these. God’s Holy Spirit doesn’t make mistakes. He knows exactly how to guide us, and through him, we are equipped to handle anything life throws our way. But we must be clear that we cannot guide ourselves. We can’t take over the reins or try to nudge the Holy Spirit in the direction we want to go, but this is what many of us try to do. And when we attempt to do this, it’s like trying to run a marathon in quicksand.
Do not judge
In just about all cases, there’s a prize given to those who win a race. As it pertains to the race of life, God tells us in Hebrews 11:6 that He is the Greatest Rewarder of all eternity. He compensates us for our diligent efforts to please Him through our faithfulness. By this, we should understand that diligent effort means that you and I are always, always, always striving to get to the place God has destined us to be. Diligent effort not only means we understand that God sets the race before each of us, but we also understand that He alone is the One who awards the prize.
The imagery of running a marathon in quicksand describes the almost impossible and tormenting struggle of trying to win a race by hardly moving at all. Hardly moving at all is a lack of momentum and endurance, and one of the things that causes this is disobedience to the command of Christ in Matthew 7:1(NLT), “Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.”
To judge others is to form an opinion about them or to develop a conclusion about a person based on our own opinions. This can lead to devaluing an individual’s worth because our own sense of self-worth is inappropriately elevated. It is sometimes rooted in arrogance, wrong believing, and the failure to understand the love of Christ.
Having a false opinion of a person is casting a judgment on them undeservingly. Romans 3:23 says that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We were all children of darkness at one point, but God saved us through His tremendous and amazing grace, and it is this same grace that we are to apply to everyone else. We should recognize that God isn’t finished with them just as He isn’t finished with us. We have enough to do in life to keep our own selves in line according to God’s Word. So, we must be clear that our responsibility is to pray for people and not to judge them.
Do not envy sinners
Sadly, much of social media is about casting judgment and promoting envy of others. Proverbs 23:17(NLT) tells us, “Don’t envy sinners, but always continue to fear the LORD.” People crave attention, probably more today than any other time. They are made famous for having popularity, riches and wealth, yet they have no desire to know God in the pardon of their sins through Jesus Christ.
When we focus on those who seek to garner attention and boost their own egos, our ability to run our own races with endurance is slowed down, and sometimes halted completely. As God’s people, we are set apart from the world, and we should not envy worldliness. No matter how successful or fun it appears to be, as children of the light, we should not allow ourselves to be deceived by something that looks good but isn’t good for us. Gobbling up our attention and causing us to be focused on what those who enjoy sin are doing is one of satan’s ways to interrupt our destinies. We must be wise about this and nip it in the bud.
Most people only see the outside view of seemingly successful people. Social media allows these folks the advantage of only revealing what they want others to see. But if we had an inside view of what is really going on, we would see the depth of sin’s curse and the continuous unraveling of their existences from the inside out. They have no foundation because they don’t intimately know the One who is the foundation of life and living. They are to be pitied and prayed for, but never envied.
Do not love the world
God commands us in 1John 2:15(NLT), “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” I’ve heard many people complain that they don’t understand this command from God. “How can God tell us to love everyone, and then tell us not to love the world?” There is no contradiction in God’s Word ever. Our Heavenly Father is looking at the motivation of our hearts. The world is under the influence of satan and his realm of darkness, and most people in the world are blind to what satan is doing.
To love the world is to love the systems, institutions, and people of darkness that belong to satan and are under his influence. It is to elevate satan’s agenda to overtake the world with sin and darkness over God’s Plan of salvation through the finished work of Christ. To love the world is to deny what God did to rescue us from darkness through the sacrifice and resurrection of Christ. It is to lust after only the things that pleasure the flesh instead of nourishing our spirits by clinging to God through Jesus Christ.
We must not allow our hearts to be consumed with the pleasures of this world. If we do this, we are sending a signal that our passions are tangled up in darkness; that’s a recipe for disaster. Recognize that nothing slows our momentum and stamina in this Christian race more than a lack of passion for the things of God and His Kingdom. As followers of Christ, we must examine ourselves. We must observe our actions, thoughts, and attitudes. When we find ourselves judging others, envying sinners, or focusing on what the world offers, we must put ourselves in check. The race that God has set before us is the most important of any other thing in life, and we should do all that we can to win it.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Running A Marathon in Quicksand” written by Reverend Fran Mack, edited by Kim Times, for Sundie Morning Sistas ©2022. All rights reserved. All done to the glory of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord!