Starting Slow But Finishing Strong — Sunday Thought For The Day

I was recently speaking with a young lady who competes in marathons. I spoke with her two days before her race and immediately following her race.

In our conversation before the race she, her brother, and I talked about her “per mile” times and that she was improving her time. As we concluded our conversation after her race, the thought came to me that in marathons you start start slow and finish strong. And it immediately came to me that’s the way it should be with our lives.

We are conceived in sin, born in sin, and while we are born to die, God, through the sacrificial death and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ, made it possible for us not to die as sinners.

Regardless of what the world preaches, without Christ in our lives we are driven and motivated by sin. We may feel superior because we believe ourselves to be moral but morality alone does not save us, whereas the fruit of the Spirit is Godly morality.

We start our lives slow steeped in sin as sinners and prayerfully at some point in our lives we realize that we cannot save our own souls and we turn to Jesus for salvation. And we finish our lives strong in Christ.

But one doesn’t become strong in the faith without the training that comes through adversity and spending time every day with God. Reading the bible, studying the bible, and faithfully attending a Christ-centered church gives us the “spiritual carbohydrates” needed for the endurance of life that lies in front of us.

Just as my friend cannot hope to finish, much less compete in marathons without strenuous training and strict attention to the special dietary needs of a long distance runner, neither can we hope to walk with the Lord in a victorious way without spiritual training and a spiritual diet.

Every athlete who strives to excel will speak about the joy of the pain that comes from training in preparation to compete. They will tell you the actual competition is the easier part; it’s the training and discipline that they enjoy most. It may seem counter-intuitive in thought but the facts are simple; you cannot finish strong if you do not prepare.

If our desire is to live a life of victory in Christ Jesus and to be used by Him, we must ask God to please give us the hunger and thirst for Him that is synonymous with training. When we stand face-to-face before the Lord it will not be for a medal, but to hear Him say: “Well done, good and faithful servant.” (See: Matthew 25:23)

READ:
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
24 Know ye not that they who run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
25 And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we, an incorruptible.
26 I, therefore, so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the the air;

1 Timothy 4:8
8 For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.