GET READY

Remember when? Remember when you were a little younger than you are now, and you would attend those end of year school picnics? Everyone was classified into their appropriate age categories and the race began with three basic commands, ‘Get ready, get set, GO!’ I remember. I remember coming in last or near the end every time. I was not a fast runner but I always persevered to the bitter end!
In the next couple of sessions I want to cover those three important little directives.
In this race we call life it is so easy to get encumbered with all things that will slow us down so to begin with let’s ‘get ready’.
The apostle Paul in his letter to the Church at Philippi, chapter 3 verses 12-14 relates how he ‘strains’ forward to reach the goal. I don’t suppose he did that while carrying a lot of extra baggage with him.
The writer of Hebrews goes one step further and instructs us to ‘throw off everything that hinders and the sin that entangles’ (NIV).
Have you ever seen someone walking through the airport wearing a backpack stuffed to the limits, balancing a bag under each arm and carrying two large pieces of luggage, one in each hand? Oh, and I have yet to mention the blanket thrown over one shoulder and the computer bag over the other.
That’s entanglement! You would never attempt that, but how many try getting through life while trying to balance hurts left over from childhood which for some of us go back sixty years? These hurts have now evolved into full grown resentments, breeding bitterness and anger simmering just below the surface. What about envy over something as small as the size of a friend’s house? And we can’t forget greed and all the issues it brings along; tendency to become a workaholic, the temptation to cheat a little here and there in our finances.
The author of the book of Hebrews encourages us to throw it all aside and run the race set before us; the life that God has planned for us, the life He has prepared for us. Now we must get ready and allow God to prepare us for that life.
Just like no one in his right mind would attempt running a race with all that baggage and ‘stuff’ hanging onto him, we need to let it go and get ready to run the race and finish it!
At the end of his life Paul, the apostle, claims he has ‘fought the good fight, run the race and finished the course’, 2 Timothy 4:7 (NIV).  Jesus Christ stands ready to take all those old burdens from you; He desires to give you freedom to run the race and win it! 1 Peter 5:7 encourages us to cast all our care on Him for He cares for us.
I believe that’s a good way to start getting ready to run the race on the way to the party.

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