Run To Jesus

Run!

That's the command at the start of Hebrews 12.

Run!

Run for your life. Not because you're being chased by a man eating lion, but because you're being chased by a much worse adversary. Run! Run from your sin. Running is one of the themes of Hebrews. We're told not to neglect our salvation, but run hard towards it, we're told not to harden our hearts but to stay the course, and then we're told at the end to run to Jesus, outside the camp.

As we run we are encouraged by the saints who have gone before us. We hear their stories, and we're encouraged that the God who did extraordinary things with ordinary us is the God who can do the extraordinary with us. We're encouraged to look at their example, and see their witness that Jesus is better than the wealth of Israel and the gods of foreign women. Run! Cast off the sin that entangles you. When you crouch on the starters block, don't have your legs tied, don't wear running shoes of concrete, cast off what holds you back. Stop asking, 'is this a sin,' and ask 'does this help me run?' Not, what's wrong with X, but what's right with it.

Run, don't meander or walk, run, and run towards Jesus.

Look to Jesus, says the author in verse 2. When you look at A you look away from B. When i looked to Rachel in marriage i looked away from every other women. When you looked to Jesus for salvation you looked away from every other religion, every other philosophy, every other salvation scheme. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus in your local church, as you sing, and hear God's Word preached, and celebrate communion. Look to Jesus as you read the Bible for yourself, ten verses a day, ten chapters a day, it's not important, just look. Look to Jesus as you pray. As your innermost desires and despairs are given vent to a good God.

So look to Jesus today. This looking and delighting in Jesus is the foundation of our faith, that Christ is to us, the chief among ten thousand, and ten thousand thousand. As we look at Jesus, as we are captivated by His goodness, and stunned that He would be good to us, 'the things of the world will grow strangely dim,' and we'll desire nothing more than to be His, more and more.