For His Pleasure…we run
Running for His Pleasure
Running the race with persistence and endurance and finishing well—that is where we left off last week. The importance of proper spiritual training, spiritual nutrition, proper care for our “injuries”, and the necessity of the training log are all critical keys for staying in the race for the long term. If we want to finish well we must run well.
Some additional questions come to mind as we consider our pursuit of the goal to run and finish well. Three critical questions give us our direction and lead us to the proper passion for this race we call the “Christian Life”.
The first question is the question-for whom do we run?
The movie Chariots of Fire is a heart stirring story about the 1924 Olympic runner, Eric Liddell. Liddell was not only a world-class runner, but also a minister, a missionary called by God to China. He and his family wrestled with his calling to China and the passion in him to run. Most of us, not being gifted with world-class speed, cannot begin to understand Eric Liddell’s dilemma. He was a man called of God to reach people with the gospel and yet gifted by God to run like the wind! What’s a man to do? I can relate, being the multi-sport athlete that I am! (Just kidding) Eric Liddell, and especially his sister, truly struggled with this. Ultimately, Liddell came to the crucial realization that God had gifted him and called him to both things. For him it was a question of with whom his loyalties lay. If he recognized that he were putting China off for his own pursuits then he would have dropped the running. He shared with his sister what he came to understand as he wrestled with this dual calling, “God has made me for a purpose, for China. But he has also made me fast, and when I run I feel His pleasure.”
It all comes down to who it is we serve ultimately and first. If our aspirations are for our name, our reputation, our recognition, our promotion, our financial goals, our self, then we miss the mark. When we aspire to excellence because we want to show His glory and His excellence then we hit the mark. Eric Liddell had decided that he would indeed serve His God in China, but he also knew that God had given him the ability to run before Him in order that Liddell might have a platform from which to share his faith. The question is one of preeminence. Excellence honors God and draws people to Him. What He gifts us to do with excellence we ought to use to tell of His grace. Ultimately, it’s a question of worship. Ravi Zacharias instructs us this way in his discussion of Eric Liddell’s life and priorities, “worship binds all of life together and gives it a single focus. It takes all of the cries of our heart, the diversity of our loves and abilities and coalesces them into one direction. Worship is the supreme expression in life, the root from which life’s branches grow and expressions flower.”
The second question is “Why do we run?”
What’s our motivation? Again, it comes down to our aim. Is the goal self promotion or the rewards of this life? Or rather, is it our intention to run well in order that those looking on might see the difference Christ makes in a life? Do we pursue the “moral high-ground” in order that we might appear as a superior personality, or do we pursue God’s morality because we long to honor Him as a loving response for His matchless grace in our lives? What we must come to understand is that we find our greatest pleasure as we run our hearts out to bring Him pleasure. His pleasure results in our fulfillment—that’s the ridiculous grace of God! He is not a cosmic killjoy who wants us to be bored to death. He has assured us that in running to and for Him we find life and that abundantly. Don’t you want that more than anything? How may of us run after all the wrong things? Much of what we run after leads only to heartache, broken psyches, stress, and a thirst for more. Only when we run for Him do we run with a sense of peace. Only in Him do we find our stride and hit our runners “high”.
And lastly, we must ask “How do we run?”
It has been pointed out already, but it must be highlighted again-we run with excellence. Excellence is the minimum requirement for the people of God. We serve a God of excellence. Excellence honors God and draws people to Him. His love is excellent. His grace is excellent. His justice is excellence. All His ways are excellent. Let us be passionate about excellence in all we do. As we do our work with excellence, as we relate to others with excellence, as we maintain excellence of integrity, as we worship with excellence, as we preach with excellence, as we serve with excellence, as we live with a passion for excellence we gain an audience for the Gospel.
We must also run straight. As people of God we harm ourselves and others, and we misrepresent God’s character when we get “off track”. The straight way is the way. Too few choose the narrow way, but those that do finish the race in the winners circle. It is not always easy to put the old man to death; however, it is critical to running the race well.
We run with passion. Passion stirs the heart and wins people over. The passion of our Christ is what compels us to come to Him. God’s passion for His people is what draws us. Our passion for His purposes will be the hook that draws others to consider God. Those that see us passionately run the race may just want to pick up the running with us!
It is a beautiful thing to watch the “good runner” do his thing. Have you ever looked in awe at the Olympic runner? The musculature, the evidence of years of passion, training, heart, and sacrifice-this is what makes us watch the games, is it not?
Friends, this race is worth running. We run with divine purpose. We run with the inspiration that comes from the knowledge of the reward that lies ahead. When we finish well ours is an eternal reward. May God enable us to train, aspire, hunger, dream, and indeed to run and run well.
RUN. BE FAITHFUL, FINISH WELL.
Bruce Smith
Optimuslife.org
This entry was posted on 30. January 2008 at 10:13 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.