A Great Crowd Of Witnesses

Given May 10, 2006
On Wednesday nights at church, we’ve been watching different DVD series from Ray VanderLaan and John Bevere. Tonight, we began the second series by VanderLaan which is produced by Focus On The Family and I highly recommend it. He is a teacher and historian who takes you to places in the Bible and teaches Faith Lessons on the area. Powerful stuff!

Tonight, he took his group to a “stadium” where athletic contests once took place and suggested that we, as Christians, were God’s olympians. We are as Paul said “running a race” 2 Timothy 4:7, performing for our God and he showed us the stands where the fans would have been seated, cheering for their favorite.

It’s like in Hebrews 12:1-2, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” As I run the race set before me, all the heros of the faith from Hebrews 11 are there in the stands cheering me on to the finish. And they aren’t the only ones. My Dad is there, my grandparents are there, some uncles, aunts and cousins are there. And my God is there! The Bible says we’re not all gonna win, 1 Corinthians 9:24, but we should run like we want to win. And that means when we cross the finish line and God says, “Did you give it your all?” I can say, “Yes, Father, I did!”

This also made me think, “Am I giving my Christian race everything I’ve got?” I don’t think so, not every day. I need to do better. I don’t wanna let the fans down. But, most of all, I don’t want to let My God down! Pick up the pace, Bill! Make ’em cheer!