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PROGRAM D-8323
There is a Fountain of Youth in St. Augustine, Florida, where for $15 you can go into the spring that Ponce de Leon found in 1513 which promises to make and keep you eternally young by bathing in its waters. I’m not sure you want to waste your money at this site because there’s no proof that it works! However, as a believer in Jesus Christ, you can find a spiritual fountain of youth. To help you, I’m giving you five things you can do to be inwardly renewed day by day.
Here’s step three, and it’s found in 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.”
A few years ago, I thought I could run the Chicago Marathon—and I trained to try to do it. But fairly quickly, I discovered that about ten miles was my limit and I’d never make the 26.2 miles required for a marathon. I grew very weary; my body couldn’t do it, and I’m sure I never will run a marathon.
But what I can do—and what you can do as a Christ-follower—is to run the race that God has laid out for you to run because that doesn’t depend on your age, how strong your body is, or what shape you’re in physically. You can be renewed daily on the inside and, like a marathon runner, finish the race.
Notice that the writer to the Hebrews says we are to run with perseverance the race marked out for us. I don’t have to run your race and you don’t have to run mine. God has a race for each of us and, furthermore, he has the resources that we each need to run that race with perseverance. This means not giving up or quitting. It means we finish well because we are renewed inwardly.
Notice the conditions of this verse—to throw off everything that hinders you and get rid of the sin that so easily entangles you. The stuff that’s holding you down is also keeping you from the spiritual fountain of youth. In other words, as long as you hold on to the sin that is entangling you and all the stuff that hinders you from doing what Jesus wants you to do, the more you are losing your spiritual energy, your fervor, and your youth. Is it worth it?
If you want to stay spiritually young, then throw off the things that are keeping you from running your race.