New Year, New Endurance

All of you are likely aware that today is the start of a new year. The start of a new year always comes with new dreams and new challenges. For me, his blog is one of my new dreams. This year, I hope to have my thoughts and words shared with a wider audience. I want my first post to be one that encourages anyone who reads it, providing Biblical hope for 2024.

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. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin.

Hebrews 12:1-4 NLT

In this new year, let us work to strip off the weight of sin and run freely. When we are running the destination we seek is Jesus Christ. The finish line is holiness, the be like Christ. But like any race, the rip to the finish line isn’t always easy. Running and racing is something that I have a vast amount of experience with. I ran nine seasons of cross country, beginning in seventh grade with my final season being my junior year of college. Running is hard and some people enjoy it more than others, unfortunately, I was not somebody who enjoyed running. Despite this, all of the pain, arduous work, and time committed to running was worth it when I crossed the finish line after a good race. There was one other thing that drew me to cross country and track, the camaraderie provided by my teammates. This is the essential key to running our race towards holiness.

Several aspects of this climactic passage in Hebrews draw on the image of the Christian pilgrimage as a long-distance race, and the first is, obviously, the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ all around us. Those who have gone before us, from Abel and Abraham right through to the unnamed heroes and heroines noted at the end of chapter 11, haven’t simply disappeared. They are there at the finishing line, cheering us on, surrounding us with encouragement and enthusiasm, willing us to do what they did and finish the course in fine style.

N.T. Wright

The most crucial relationship in the Christian life is our relationship with God. This is an unfathomably complex relationship. God is Christ the Savior. God is Emmanuel. God is Jehovah Jireh. God is the Holy Spirit. God is Abba Father. But God didn’t intend for our relationship with him to be the only one involved in this race we run. He gave us the great cloud of witnesses as well as the Church. N.T. Wright says that the cloud of witnesses is cheering us on at the finish line, and luckily, we have the Church encouraging us as we run together. I would not have made it through nearly a decade of competitive running if it weren’t for running alongside people who encouraged me. Now I coach cross country an track, running alongside the athletes in practice and encouraging them. Providing them with strategies for races and cheering them on during their race. In this metaphor, the coaches in faith would be ministers and teachers, ironically, my other job.

With mentors to guide us, peers to run alongside, and a cloud of witnesses to learn from, we can run full speed toward Christ. The beauty of this is the fact that Jesus is the one who gives us the strength to endure. Brothers and sisters, I encourage you to run toward Jesus and endure through 2024 and beyond. Shalom.

References:

Tyndale House Publishers (Ed.). (2015). The holy Bible: New living translation (3rd ed.). Tyndale House Publishers. https://ref.ly/logosres/nlt?ref=BibleNLT.Heb12.1-3

Wright, N. T. (2004). Hebrews for everyone. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. https://ref.ly/logosres/hebevry?ref=Bible.Heb12.1-3&off=1798