“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus.” Heb. 12: 1, 2.
Believers are spoken of here as running a race, as elsewhere their life is compared to a warfare or a conflict. The Apostle could say in another epistle: “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 3: 14.) The Christian life is never represented as easy but a life involving a striving, an agonizing, a wrestling, an overcoming. Yet the Christian is not left in the dark as to how he is to persevere in the race which he is to run. He is to run this race looking unto Jesus. His eye must ever, must constantly be on Christ who alone can preserve him from falling and present him faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.
Too often our eye is upon ourselves.
How easy it is for us to look to ourselves in pride, self-reliance and self-adulation. Even where there may be the appearance of humility what depths of pride it may cover. How often too, does there lie under a sanctimonious spirit the grossest spiritual pride.
But we may look to ourselves in another way. We may be looking within and seeing so much sin and unbelief, so much worldliness and carnality that it seems an impossibility that grace could dwell in such a heart. How downcast such a soul can feel. No man was ever encouraged by looking within. It can only lead us to the sad but inevitable conclusion that “in me, that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing”. There is no encouraging prospect there—all looks dark, and bleak, and hopeless. How then is such a soul to be uplifted. The answer is simple. For every look within he must take a thousand looks to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Too often we look to men.
Though the Scripture has warned us—”Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?” (Is. 2: 22)—yet we still put our trust in man. Even after many disappointments we again fall into the same mistake. When will we heed the warning voice of God in His Word? There He is saying:
“Trust not in princes, nor man’s son,
in whom there is no stay.”
The best of men are but men, liable to fall, liable to err. Some, no doubt, are more prone to fall and to err than others but the best of them are little better than shaky reeds. Place no reliance in men, not even in good men—look only to Jesus. You will have no disappointments there. The more you look to Him the more you will be brought to admire him, and the more you admire Him the more you will have to say there is none like Jesus.
You are to run the race looking unto Jesus; looking to Him as the One who has gone before. You are to follow Him in the way—haltingly it may be oftentimes—yet seeking to follow in His footsteps, daily looking to Him in order that you may receive a fresh supply of grace to sustain you in the way. You are to be dependent upon Him for all things constantly realising that without Him you can do nothing. You are to look to Him as the One who trod the winepress of the wrath of God in order that you might never tread it. You are to look to Him as the risen, exalted, glorified Redeemer, as the One who has promised to be with His people always and who will not be in heaven and any of them left out.
Is this how you are running the race? Are you looking unto Jesus? if not, how discouraged you must be. To you the Lord is saying in His Word: “Look up . . . for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Luke 21: 28.)
Have you not even begun to run the race? To you the Saviour says: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” (Is. 45: 22.)