Life and peace? Yes, please!
All around us things clamor for our attention, making peace a seemingly elusive concept just out of our reach at times. Paul tells the Romans a mind set on the Spirit leads to life and peace. That sounds great, but how do we do that? How do we take our minds off of our flesh and set them on the Spirit?
Stick around this week and see what God’s word has to say about it …
Fix My Eyes
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith … so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
Hebrews 12:1-3, NASB
The demands of life are endless—as are the distractions. Coming at us from every direction, things scream for our attention. Many of them need our attention, but many do not. It’s no wonder that we can get sidetracked and focus our sights on the wrong things.
Many days that which screams at me the loudest gets my attention. Sadly, it’s often my fleshly, sinful self. How do I get my eyes off my flesh and set on Jesus? The struggle is real on this one.
When runners show up to a race, they don’t show up with weights strapped to their arms and legs or hanging from their necks. Instead, arriving with the goal in mind of crossing the finish line, they shed anything that can slow them down.
Like weights strapped to us, our sin distracts and weighs us down. Whether we realize it or not, you and I are running a God-ordained race day in and day out. Your course looks different from mine, but our finish line is the same: to stand in the presence of our Lord and Savior.
As we lace up our running shoes and hit the course that the Lord has set before us each day, it’s imperative we shed the sin that weighs us down and fix our eyes on Jesus.
For many of us, our thought lives can add significant weight to our bodies. Living with sinful thoughts as constant companions, our witness for Christ and ability to run our race is hindered.
I pray that each of us would be especially cognizant of the effects our thoughts have on us and with humility, we would take every thought captive and submit our minds to Christ. And with an attitude of praise and thanksgiving, we would experience the peace of God regardless of our circumstances.
Let us fill our minds with more of Him and less of the world as we keep our eyes fixed squarely on Him. Running with endurance, the race that He, the author and perfecter of our faith has set before us.
Running the race,
Traci
Each Christmas, I find myself thinking about Mary, the mother of Jesus. When I was 15, I played the part of Mary in a Christmas play at our church. Since then, I’ve always loved reading her story in the first chapter Luke and thinking about her life.