MORNING MANNA        6-17-21

STAYING ON TRACK
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:”- 2 Tim. 4:7
After preaching from this text last Sunday I began thinking about things I didn’t have time to mention. One of the first was the story about the hound dog that was chasing a deer. During the course of the chase a fox crossed his path, so he started chasing the fox. A bit later a rabbit crossed his path, so he took off after the rabbit. Finally a mouse crossed the path and, you guessed it, he started chasing the mouse. He continued tracking the mouse until it went into a hole. So, there sat the hound dog howling at a mouse hole in the ground!

Now before you laugh at the hound you need to consider your ways. The sad truth is that we are often distracted by things that are not of any great importance. Rather than following Christ we take off in pursuit of something else that crosses our path. And that’s why we fail. You can’t live a first class life by pursuing things of secondary importance. The only way to succeed in life is to find and follow God’s will. That’s success even if you don’t have a penny to spend. When we stand before Christ to give an account of our life, the only thing that matters is this – did we faithfully discharge our duties as a child of God. We can’t afford to let anything stand in the way of that.

Heb. 12:1 warns us about this. As we run the race that is set before us we must “lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us“. This tells us that disobedience isn’t the only danger we face. We must also dodge the danger of distractions (“every weight“) if we are to run well. Not doing so can cause sinless things to become sinful. Nothing is deserving of our absolute attention and total devotion but Christ. Being distracted from Him puts us in great danger.
Here’s the key to success – to faithfully finish our course we must ever be “Looking unto Jesus” ( Heb. 12:2). We must not allow anything to distract us from Him. You cannot turn your back on Christ if you are looking unto Him! – HDS