A Race Well Planned

Every Wednesday we’ll post something to do with doctrine and recovery. Hope it helps.

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A Race Well Planned 

(Excerpted from the upcoming book “Five Steps to breaking Free from Porn” by Joe Dallas, Harvest House Publishing 2013)

The following is a brief excerpt from my new book, to be released this June, which I thought was applicable to today’s subject of doctrine and purity. I hope you enjoy it. To pre-order the book itself, please click here.

It always helps to look at the big picture, part of which is this: God has a purpose for your life, and specific plans for you. You have a limited amount of time to see those plans fulfilled, then you’re gone, facing a reckoning at the judgment seat of Christ, and eternity with Him. That’s the big picture. Now, within that picture there are lots of images scripture uses to illustrate your limited journey here – pilgrimage and sojourning, for example – but I’m especially interested in one used both by Paul and the author of Hebrews: a race.

“Do you not know,” Paul said, “that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it”  (1 Corinthians 9:24) and Hebrews exhorts us to “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1).

You’re running a race as we speak. In your race there’s a goal, a process, rules governing what you may or may not do, and a need for clear focus and unreserved commitment. Your particular event consists of whatever God calls you to accomplish in this life: your responsibilities, gifts, calling, primary relationships. That makes you a sprinting steward, one who’s given both responsibilities and goals. Now, more than ever, you need to consider them and take them to heart.

God calls us with an eye both towards our current situation, and the potential and future God sees when He calls us. So in John 1:42 we see Jesus encounter Peter and say, “You are Simon the son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (which is translated, A Stone). God apprehended Abram by promising he’d become a father of many nations (Genesis 17:4) and Saul, a persecutor of the church, was shown that God intended him to become Paul, a light unto the Gentiles and many nations (Acts 13:47).

God sees who you are, who He intends you to be, and what it will take to get you there. That, to my thinking, is a primary reason He’s called us to shed ongoing sins, which constitute a weight that needlessly slows us down.

So while shedding them, look long and hard at the track. Pray for guidance to run by, enlightenment to see the curves and stretches coming, and strength to get your second, fifth and thousandth wind.

As members of the body you and we are part of, we’re all waiting to see how you run. And we’re hoping you run well.