The Race of Life

Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.
1 Corinthians 9:26

What if you were watching the Olympics and someone in the marathon made their own course? Maybe they even ran the correct distance, and ran it in the fastest time, but they went all over the city of Rio and didn't follow the course - would they get the gold?

What if you were watching boxing and the strongest, fastest, smartest boxer decided to just punch the air to scare his/her opponent, but their opponent got 1 punch in - would they get the gold? No - the other boxer would win.

Paul's point is that it makes completely no sense for a runner to run without direction or a boxer to swing at nothing and have no target. If the same way are our lives with or without direction? What is the vision you have in your life? What is your life's purpose or mission that you are trying to live out? If you don't know where you are going, then it doesn't really matter what direction you go. BUT - if you know where you want to go, if you have purpose in your life, and especially if that purpose is Jesus, than we need to run in such a way as to cross the finish line. We need to swing in such a way as to hit the target.

Let's pause and reevaluate our lives and the things that we are spending our time doing. The direction in life we are going. We are just running aimlessly, or are we running the course Jesus has set before us with faithfulness? Or are we running through life aimlessly missing the path that Jesus has set for us?

Pastor Steve