Hebrews 12

"Let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us."

I was never much for running. I did cross-country in high school, but I hated the running part. The part afterwards- the euphoria--that wasn't so bad. But the running part, especially the second mile-- that was the worst.

I'm in my second mile. Just in time for Lent.

"It is for discipline that you have to endure."

Endurance training. Just like cross-country: those weeks in the summer, miserable sweating weeks trying to become limber again, without the pleasures of crisp fall weather to lift your heels.

"See to it that no one be immoral or irreligious like Esau who sold his birthright for a single meal." That's the sum of sin. A fleeting moment, and the shame of it all later.

Because we have a grander destiny- we have our sights set higher: "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus...and to the sprinkled blood..."

Did you catch that? "made perfect". Discipline. Training. Prayer.

"For our God is a consuming fire".

They call it 'the runner's high' or getting in the zone.

The sprinkled blood and the constant reminder that there's a finish line we haven't reached yet. Push. Go. Dig. Run like the wind!!!

"In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood."
Resist. Endure. Be made perfect.

"Grow not weary or fainthearted...nor lose courage when you are punished by him. For the Lord disciplines him whom he LOVES"

Lord, consume us~