Oh for a one-track mind

Professional marathon runners have one-track minds.  Everything they do - whether before or during a race - is aimed at completing the course in the shortest possible time. If you see a runner relaxing on race-day, he has either completed the course or has given up. Complacency, lethargy and apathy are adjectives that do not describe marathon runners.

I wish the same could be said of Christians. We often lack the single-minded passion of marathon runners, acting as though we have arrived when there is still a long way to go. Getting to know Christ Jesus your Lord is the work of a lifetime. But does your life create the impression that you have arrived? Beware! You may be deceived into believing that you have. In which case you will have stopped running the race.

Reflect for a moment on the passion with which Christ took hold of you. From eternity past, you were in the mind of God (Ephesians 1:4-6). Jesus set His sights on you before the dawn of time. Then He was tortured beyond recognition and crucified on a cross so that you might become a child of God.

Will you exert even a fraction of the passion Christ showed to take hold of that for which He took hold of you: to know Jesus as Saviour and Lord? You have not arrived. There is a long way to go. In the words of the Apostle Paul: “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Phil 3:12-14)”.

Cheers for now - Ian