“For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:” I Peter 2:21
If you have ever been tasked with what seems impossible, then you know that feeling of denial. Your boss walks in and says he needs a report calculating the cost projections, labor requirements, and a PowerPoint to present to potential investors. You have yet to learn how you are supposed to format the information or if it is even possible to accomplish it within the time you have left in the workday. Your heart is racing, and you start to get frustrated. All kinds of excuses start running through your mind about why you can’t get the job done, and your boss needs to jump in a lake. It can’t be done. The task is too much. It is too hard. There is not enough time. You’ve never done it before, or maybe you have never even seen it done.
In your frustration, you go to your email to see if there is any information to help you start collecting the relevant information. Bam! There it is. The top email. It is an email from your boss with a sample report attached. The email includes links to all the individual reports and contact information for the individual team leads in charge of managing the project. You now have an example and a direct link to the resources needed to achieve your objective. There is no more denial of what is possible.
Dear Christian, our race is the exact same. What God expects us to accomplish is too big for us. He knew that we would need help to discern the correct next steps. The task of running the Christian race right is no small feat. Many start running, but they don’t finish well because they lost hope of ever succeeding. That sense of despair is not uncommon. If you haven’t felt it yet in your Christian race, trust me, friend, it is coming!
Your next steps follow his steps. God didn’t just give a list of rules and expect us to follow blindly. Jesus Christ came to Earth and lived a life of example for us.
In the book of John, Jesus washes the feet of the disciples, then He says, “For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.” The King of Kings lowered himself to washing dirty feet by hand to be our example of love and service. The 12 disciples understood that to be followers of Christ, we must walk as he walked. Our lives are supposed to follow in His footsteps.
Peter, the disciple who so often got ahead of Jesus, wrote, “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.”
There are many places in the Bible that talk about where God walked and even some that talk about whom God walked with, so if you are looking for a fun study, I recommend it. However, there are not many examples of God running. The story of the prodigal son portrays a very unique version of God.
The story of the prodigal son is a parable in Luke 15 that places Christians as the two sons. The younger son runs from his father in an attempt to live his own way with the blessings of his inheritance from his wealthy father. The older son stays serving in his father’s house. The younger son wastes his inheritance and is soon left desolate. He is starving and working well below his station to survive. The Bible says that the younger son came to his senses and realized that even the servants in his father’s house had more than him. He decided to go back and ask for a servant’s position. Luke 15:20 tells us what happened when the younger son decided to leave the pig pen.
“And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”
Did you catch it?
The Father ran.
The parable shows that God’s compassion led Him to run to us the moment we came back into sight. Compassion on (Matt 15:32) and for the lost fueled the greatest run in the universe.
For God so loved, He ran to us.
For the Joy that was set before Him, God ran to us.
Bringing Comfort and Truth, God ran to us.
Learn from the greatest example of all and let compassion fuel you in your Christian race.
Run to the Father.
Run to meet the lost on their way home.
Run with the Truth today.