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. [Hebrews 12:1-2a (NLT)]
“How was work today?” asked the wife in the Born Loser comic strip (drawn by Chip Sansom). Her husband answered, “Horrendous!” adding, “It feels so good that it’s over, I’m almost glad it happened!” Having had times when my prayer was simply, “Lord, just get me through this!” I understand. Sometimes, life seems so challenging and exhausting that we’re willing to settle for merely getting through it. That, dear friend, is setting the bar far too low. God has better plans for us than just getting by and none of us are born losers.
Sarah wanted a baby so much that she was willing to settle for surrogate motherhood when, in fact, God promised that she’d give birth to a nation. When he fled to Midian, Moses just wanted to escape persecution for killing an Egyptian. God’s plans were that he would lead the Hebrews to freedom. The orphaned Esther probably just wanted to settle down with a nice Jewish boy. She never imagined that God’s plans included making her a queen who would save her people from genocide. Gideon, hiding in a winepress, just wanted to get the wheat threshed so he could feed his family. God’s plans were that he’d defeat the Midianites and become Israel’s fifth judge. The widowed foreigner Ruth just wanted to feed herself and Naomi with the leavings in Boaz’s field. She never dreamt of being great-grandmother to Israel’s second king and ancestor to the Messiah. The woman at the well just wanted to fill her water jug and go home without incident when she got the living water of Jesus. Zacchaeus, the tax man, would have been happy just to catch a glimpse of the rabbi from Nazareth. He got much more when Jesus came for dinner and brought salvation with Him. What of the fishermen from Galilee who just wanted to catch enough fish to pay their bills and put food on the table? Did they ever imagine they’d break bread with God? Considering all that God can accomplish through us, it would seem that our hopes and dreams often are way too small.
The Apostle Paul doesn’t tell us just to get through the race—to schlep halfheartedly through the course set before us. He tells us to strip every weight that slows us down and run (not walk) with perseverance. Sin can trip us up, but so can our attitude. Just hoping to make it through the day (week, month, or even year) hinders our run by setting the bar too low. We must never be willing to settle for less than the best—less than the best that God has in store for us and less than the best that we have to offer Him!
Why just settle with merely getting through life? If God just met our expectations, He’d never have the opportunity to exceed them and exceed them He will! When we allow God to determine our dreams and obediently follow His plan, the result will surpass our wildest dreams. He didn’t promise a life of just getting by: He promised a life of abundance—not a life of riches—but a rich life.
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark. [Michelangelo]
When told that the gifts the Holy Spirit gives us are unique for our specific ministries, we get nervous. We already have a career, didn’t sign up for seminary, and aren’t interested in being ministers. While being a minister/pastor/priest is a vocation, the ministry is the work of every Christian. No matter what our professions, we are all called to minister and that doesn’t necessarily mean pastoring a church. It means serving God and His people in Jesus’ name, which is where those spiritual gifts come in. God is not about to send us off empty-handed.
Joe Btfsplk was a character in Al Capp’s Lil’ Abner comic strip. With a last name that sounds likes what’s known as a “raspberry” or “Bronx cheer,” the poor man had a dark cloud of perpetual bad luck hanging over his head. Btfsplk no longer appears in the comics but I think his dark cloud of misfortune has settled over the head of a dear friend I’ll call JB (in honor of Capp’s luckless character). Since JB’s retirement, if something could go wrong, it has and, as soon as one challenge resolves, another one appears. When I saw the photos from his most recent mishap, JB looked as if he’d been tossed around in a giant rock tumbler filled with broken glass and boulders.
Several years ago, two friends joined the ranks of widowhood within a week of one another. Because her husband surrendered to cancer several months earlier by stopping all treatment, one woman was not surprised when she joined the club. The other woman, however, went to bed a wife and awoke the next morning to find herself a widow. Despite his looking the picture of health, her husband, having suffered a fatal stroke while she slept, lay dead on the kitchen floor.
Psalm 119, the longest of the psalms, is a song in praise of the Word of God. Since we don’t read this psalm in its original Hebrew, we fail to appreciate its intricate construction. Each of its twenty-two sections begin with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in sequence. Each of the eight verses in those twenty-two sections begin with the letter that introduced it. For example, the first word of the first section begins with alef, as do the next seven verses. In the second section, every line begins with beth. The psalm continues that way up to the 22nd (and last) section where every line begins with the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet, tav. 
Most of us breeze through (or skip altogether) the Bible’s genealogies. Nevertheless, when genealogy and all those “begats” seem so important in Scripture, what explanation is there for the difference between the genealogies of Jesus found in Luke and Matthew? Because Jews were meticulous about recording genealogies, it’s inconceivable to have two conflicting yet correct lists of Jesus’ lineage.
Devotions of the Heart 