Life Change Intl.

Radio Excerpts:
"Running the Race to Finish"

Jerry Dunn is called "America’s Marathon Man." He ran over 40,000 miles in 26 years. His recent accomplishment was to run 200 marathon distances on certified courses in the year 2000. He lives by the motto: "Don't limit your challenges, but challenge your limits."

How many ribbons and trophies do you think Dunn has received? None! Though he has never won, he has learned one powerful secret. Not only run the race to win; run the race to finish.

The Bible compares your race in life to your growth and perseverance in Christ. You are challenged to become a marathon man or woman for Him and finish the course set before you. Though it takes training and spiritual focus, you will be prepared for the challenges God gives you.

1 Corinthians 9:24-25a reads, Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things.

Clearly God expects you to undergo training in the Christian life. Strength will be built through spiritual nutrition and exercise.

Watch Your Diet
Hebrews 5:13-14 is an instructive scripture. "For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. NKJV

Paul was addressing self-centered Christians who should have been teaching and encouraging others, but instead were needing someone to teach them the elementary truths (milk) of God’s Word. They were choosing a milk bottle over a dinner of steak and potatoes!

Milk-Drinkers Only
Babies love their milk until they discover the world of solid food! Yet some spiritual babies stay on milk and don’t move toward solid food (maturity) in the Word. It is great to be a baby when we first accept Christ, but we weren’t created to stay there forever.

Babies who don’t grow and reach certain milestones are said to have developmental delays. Yet delay isn’t what God wants. He designed you for steady and progressive growth.

Note the phrase "partake only of milk". If you limit yourself to milk, it will result in spiritual malnutrition. You will be unskillful in understanding and applying His Word.

A person who is unskillful is inexperienced in fulfilling a task. That is like telling a car mechanic to go in the operating room and perform the job of a heart surgeon. Or telling the heart surgeon to go and fix your carburetors. Neither have the experience or skill to perform the task of the other.

An unskillful person also can be a person who has all the tools, but does not learn to use them properly. Recently I wanted to learn how to change the oil in our mower. I couldn’t figure it out, so I took the manual to the hardware store where skillful people--who love to give free advice--work. They highlighted in the manual what I should do step-by-step.

As I followed their directions, I gained the experience and confidence necessary to do it again. I was so excited to become skillful in a new area that I stood there and admired the clean oil on the end of the dipstick!

Become Skillful
That is how the Christian life works. You can study the manual all you want, but until you step out and begin to practice what you believe, it doesn’t become a reality. You do not grow in the skill of using God’s Word. Learn to expand your spiritual horizons and increase your diet to include more spiritual truth and application. The Word of God will bring you into maturity and give you discernment between what pleases or displeases God.

Make that quality decision today to train well in the Word of God so you can be the best runner of all. You not only are running to win, but you are running to finish.