Running The Race

Hey Sports Fans as you all know this weekend is the Holy Grail of all sporting events of the entire year super bowl weekend. On Monday morning we’ll know which is the best football team in the NFL, who is the best quarter back, the most valuable player, even what was the best commercial. Next year at this time we will do it all over again and…will you remember who played in the 2014 super bowl, who won, or will it be just a distant memory. Fame in this world is short Lived, athletes train for years for one event, only to be forgotten in a few short months or years after winning the event. Some athletes are better known for what they have done off the playing field then on. One such athlete is Eric Liddell, gold medal winner of the 400 meter race in the 1924 Olympics.  Strangely enough Eric Liddell is best known for refusing to run in the 100 m race because it was scheduled to be run on Sunday. And for Liddell to run on Sunday would be breaking the Sabbath, which would compromise his religious beliefs. You see Eric Liddell was a preacher who just happened to be a great runner, not a great runner who just happened to be a preacher. This distinction is what makes all the difference. Liddell‘s whole reason for running was to bring glory to God for the gift that God had blessed him with, to use this gift as a platform to proclaim the gospel of God. Even though he underwent intense pressure to change his mind Liddell stood his ground and remained true to his convictions.  More concerned about pleasing his God than he was pleasing man, Liddell was well aware of what he did for God would last forever, unlike his accomplishments in the Olympics. Eric Liddell’s story brings to mind the story of the Apostle Paul , who before he was a Christian was a up and coming religious leader who was on track to becoming the High Priest of Israel who was like the Pope. In Philippians chapter 3 Paul gives a list of his accomplishments as a person and that he counts them as rubbish. In Phil. 3:7 -8 Paul says “I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ”. Only what we do for Christ will last, everything else like Paul said is rubbish

Remember every breath is a gift from God, in Matthew chapter 28:19 Jesus Christ told us to make disciples of all the nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. This is what Eric Liddell was all about, he gave his life serving God as a missionary to China where he preached the gospel and died in a Japanese internment camp ministering to his flock. The souls that were won to Christ because of his ministry, the time he spent with God mediating on his word, the time he spent communing with God in Prayer & the glory he brought to God’s name because of the stand he took in the Olympics will last forever. The luster of his gold medal has long worn off.  My prayer is that we as Christians would serve God, wherever he has put us, spending our time wisely getting to know God better by hiding his word in our hearts. To be like Eric Liddell and do what the writer of Hebrews says to do in Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.