Face To FaithSample

Do you know what would hurt? It would hurt to have run a race and finished first, thinking that you have won, until a judge approaches you to say, “You’re disqualified. You violated the rules of the race, so you didn’t win.” The rules of our race of life are pretty simple: God comes first, and we’re supposed to look and act like Him because we’re His kids. This means a lot of things, but you can boil it down to being this simple. This whole God-first thing can be tricky sometimes. It means that our money doesn’t belong to us, our family doesn’t belong to us, our house doesn’t belong to us, our car(s) don’t belong to us, and our lives don’t belong to us. In fact, nothing truly belongs to us. All of it is perishable, given to us for a time so that we have a chance to learn right stewardship and be entrusted with things of eternal value. When we get this priority right—letting God guide us in all of these things that decep- tively appear to be ours—that is true worship. In fact, only when we do these things have we truly made the Lord our God. If we are not following God in what He says concerning these things then we are only pretending that He is our God, while really we serve something else. Serving God means that we don’t tell Him, “No.” Our answer is always, “Yes, Daddy.” It means that we follow Him in our actions and not just in our words. When we serve God only with our words, giving lip service to obedience, then we run the risk of being disqualified. We must serve Him with both our words and our actions, our heart and our hands. Run with certainty. Fight the true fight. Discipline your body. Purpose yourself to this end so that you are not disqualified. Prayer Father God, Thank You for Jesus’ example as one who stayed focused till He finished the race! I know that I need help to follow the rules of putting You first and living like You. Please help me, giving me all that I need to finish my race and not be disqualified! Amen