What is the goal of walking with Christ? Where are you trying to go? Many Christians are treating their faith walk like a walk on the treadmill. The walk and walk and walk. They get quite tired, yet they never get anywhere, nor do they move forward. Why is this?
This is because faith is a race with a specific goal in mind. God has a reason He called you, and He wants to do great things with your life. What is the great thing God is wanting you to accomplish? Is God giving you a bunch of rules to keep so that you can earn heaven? Is God trying to help you be good enough to finally be righteous so that you can be blessed. Is God trying to get you to run your race so that one day you might become holy, or rather holy enough for Him to be happy with? If your answers to these questions are yes, you are treating your faith like a treadmill, you are running in place. Don’t light the torches and get out the pitchforks. I can explain and I will. My teaching is biblical, and perhaps the best teaching you will ever hear. It is the essence of the Gospel.
Many Christians are seeking the wrong finish line. These well meaning people are treating holiness, righteousness, and even salvation, as the finish line. They work and work and work, walk and walk and walk, run and run and run; all to be good enough for God. The only problem is they are never good enough. Perfection is a hard standard. One breaking of the law makes you guilty of all( James 2:10). Make these things your finish line and you will only end up tired, bitter, and exhausted. Mad at yourself and even more angry with such a strict, mean God. Let me show you a better way, the best way.
This is the Gospel in a nutshell. God knew that you and I could never never reach that finish line of holiness, righteousness, or salvation. He had mercy for us. So God did what we could not. He became a man. He entered creation in the person of the Son of God. Jesus Christ lived a perfect and sinless life for you. He perfectly kept all The Law, and earned perfect righteousness. He lived perfect holiness. He is the only one who truly merited and deserved heaven. He chose to go to the cross before He sat on the throne. He paid the wages of our sin through His death on the cross. He rose from the dead, having conquered, sin, death, hell, and the grave. He did all that so that he could give you His righteousness as a gift. He makes you Holy simply by you believing the Gospel and receiving the gift for yourself. He saves you by grace through faith.
This will set you free, if you will believe it. Christ saved you through His works. He translated you from the kingdom of darkness into His kingdom. He now puts you in a new race. He puts you in the faith race. The starting point is now the finish line you were trying to reach. You begin from victory. Before you take your first step in the race, you are already the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ( Romans 5:1, 2 Corinthians 5:17-21). You start running as Holy because Christ has made you Holy( 1 Corinthians 1:30). You are saved because of Him. You are a child of God.
Don’t waste your life trying to achieve what God has already done in Christ. Just rest in it. Believe the Gospel. From that place of victory you can really run your faith race. You can actually do God’s will and be the force for good in the earth He has called you to be. You can be a living manifestation of God’s kingdom, always loving God and loving people; with no guilt or shame or condemnation. So get off the treadmill of performance and run the race God has for you.
Refreshing Grace 