What is slowing you down?

I love this verse!

Hebrews 12:1

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,”

NLT says,

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us.”

“Let us strip off every weight that slows us down.”

What’s slowing you down?

Take some time.

Think about it.

Don’t rush.

Avoid the obvious and take the time to really think about things.

While you do so, let’s have a brief history lesson.

Ancient athletes were known to wear training weights to help them prepare for the events, however no athlete would actually go as far as to participate wearing the weights because they would slow them down. This same principle can also be applied to modern baseball players. They are known to swing a bat with a heavy metal collar on it before they step to the plate.

But I do recognise that this is not the best analogy in the present context because the weights the writer refers to exert only a negative effect.

So what is the writer talking about?

More importantly, what then are the “weights” that we should remove so that we might win the race?

In general terms, anything and everything that hinders our spiritual progress.

Let me say this first: Encumbrances might be “good things”.

I use good very loosely though, but we will come back to this.

Continuing with the athletic metaphor, a winning athlete does not choose between the good and the bad. A winning athlete often chooses between the better and the best. So this command to strip off and cast away every weight, means that we must cast away even harmless things if they hinder your progress, diverts your attention, saps your energy or dampens your enthusiasm towards the goal of the upward call in Christ Jesus.

We must realise this important fact: each runner must honestly judge what hinders their faith. They must judge themselves. And then they must lay it aside. Now this sounds easy, but the difficulty often appears where we realise that this is even though others seem to be unhindered by the same thing.

To others they may just be innocent pleasures.

However, the indulgence in the innocent pleasures of life may become a hindrance and in fact, any legitimate enjoyment can become a weight if every spare moment is given to that enjoyment. Or it might be a habit, one that in itself is not sin.

Let’s have an example! Let’s say every evening you come home and you watch four hours of television. Now I can hear what you’re going to say. “Television can have some edifying, educational shows.” But if all you do in your spare time is sit before the television, television has become to you an encumbrance. In short, if anything makes you so busy that you have no time for prayer, Bible study and spiritual service, you are too busy.

I want to reiterate:

What “encumbers” one believer may be of no consequence to another believer. The point is that we must not let anything hamper us. You cannot afford to be slowed down.

A W Pink says something very interesting on this subject:

“The principal thoughts suggested by the figure of the “race” are rigorous self-denial and discipline, vigorous exertion, persevering endurance. The Christian life is not a thing of passive luxuriation, but of active “fighting the good fight of faith!” The Christian is not called to lie down on flowery beds of ease, but to run a race, and athletics are strenuous, demanding self-sacrifice, hard training, the putting forth of every ounce of energy possessed.”

“I am afraid that in this work-hating and pleasure-loving age, we do not keep this aspect of the truth sufficiently before us: we take things too placidly and lazily… let us be aroused by the howlings of fierce animals, let us be pursued by hungry wolves, and methinks that none of us would have much difficulty in understanding the meaning of those words “let us lay aside every weight!… Many erroneously suppose they would make much more progress spiritually if only their “circumstances” were altered. This is a serious mistake, and a murmuring against God’s providential dealings with us. He shapes our “circumstances” as a helpful discipline to the soul, and only as we learn to rise above “circumstances,” and walk with God in them, are we “running the race that is set before us.””

So once again…I want to ask you:

You’ll never know how successful you can be until you get rid of the things that slow you down and trip you up.

My Sunday Skl