The Christian life is not only a race, it is a particular kind of race. You must not only run it, you must run it in a certain way. Hebrews says that we must run the race set before us with endurance. This requirement ought not to be quickly passed by. I have known men who were remarkably fast. They could out run another man without even trying. But some of these very fast men were not the kind of men who could hold up when difficulty came knocking. Over their lives, they had not steadily become men who could face significant adversity.

Your duty is to steadily become such people. Doing so requires three things of you:

First, lay aside every weight and sin that obstructs your progress. These sins take on many forms: lust, pride, laziness, worry, gossip, covetousness, pick your sin. Whatever you will confess before the Lord now is a weight. You must lay it down before the Father and then rise lighter and unburdened.

Second, consider the cloud of witnesses surrounding you. They remind you, even in the face of these new difficulties, which seem quite heavier than the last round, that you do not run alone.

Third, and this is the most essential thing: You must look to Christ. And I mean really look to Him. He is the author of your faith, and he is the finisher of your faith. That means you don’t merely look to Him as an example, saying, “Well if Jesus endured the cross, then surely I can face the day.” No, you look to the finisher of your faith, knowing you can’t finish it. The trial teaches you that you cannot trust in yourself. And so you look to Jesus because He is your endurance.

Jared Longshore – April 21, 2024

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Proverbs tells us, “As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed” (Proverbs 26:14). You can envision the man there, rotating like a stuffed pig roasting on a spit. He’s being fattened up for the slaughter. This lazy man is not happy. He is not at leisure. He is not recreating. There is no re-creation here, but de-creation. The sloth is unpleasantly immobile, digging himself deeper and deeper into an abyss, down there where satan is bound. Very often he spins downward while mindlessly scrolling on a smartphone. There is nothing particularly tantlizing about sloth. You may be tempted to it, of course. But you are not tempted to it like the sins of pride, greed, and sexual immorality. So you must know what this particular sin is up to.

R. J. Snell has wisely said that “Boredom is a heresy, declaring God was wrong when he saw the goodness of the world.” The slothful man retreats into himself, refusing to see, taste, hear, smell, and touch God’s created world with gratitude. And it is not as if the world, from which the slothful man flees, is stagnant or passive. This good creation speaks to him in a thousand ways. It reaches out to him. The birds sing to him. The sawdust assaults his sense of smell with its pleasing aroma. The apples beckon him to taste and see that they are good. They hang from the tree as if to politely request to be put into a pie.

But the slothful man trusts his own words more than these words from God. He opts to trust his lying words of despair, hopelessness, and meaninglessness; rather than the true word of God, brought to us by slimy slugs, laughing children, and rhubarb springing up from the ground. 

To all of this, the bed-bound sloth says, “But, there is a lion in the streets.” To which we must reply, “Perhaps so, and if there is, I really would like to go and see him shake his golden mane. We might even get to hear him roar.

Jared Longshore – April 14, 2024

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God’s command to us is that we would be anxious for nothing (Philippians 4:6). And nothing, of course, means nothing. This is a high bar. We all know what it is like to miss this particular mark. But that is no excuse for us missing it. Peace is what must replace worry. Peace is the fruit of the Spirit that involves all being well with your soul. But the very notion that peace is a fruit of the Spirit implies that you cannot simply go out and get it. Peace is something you must receive. It must be given to you.

After His resurrection, Jesus was with his disciples forty days. And the first thing He said when He showed Himself to them was, “Peace be unto you” (Luke 24:36). They responded with terror, afraid they had seen a spirit. But He asked them, “Why are you troubled? . . . Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 38-39). Peace flooded in at that point. Not only had they not seen a spirit. They had seen their likeness raised from the dead. A real man, dead and now raised to live forever, as they would be. While they were still in awe, He underscored their peace by asking, “Does anyone have some meat that I can eat?” Imagine their awe as they watched Him chew and swallow.

Peace comes from the resurrected Christ. You will find it nowhere else. Look to Him and believe His words when He says, “Peace be unto you.” You must see Him by faith, of course. As Isaiah says, “You will keep Him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you” (Isaiah 26:3). So stay your mind and heart on the embodied and risen Christ. He is your peace.

Jared Longshore – April 7, 2024

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If man wonders why Christianity has triumphed throughout so much of the world, then he needs to look no further than the fact that Christians are ready to die. As Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Here is a principle that every man can grasp. If you face an army in which every soldier is ready to give his life, then you face a formidable force. Christians live in this world for something more than this world. We live in this world for the next world, the resurrected world. And the Christians who live most for that world are the most effective in this one.

Let the resurrection have its full force. You are coming out of the ground, my friends. This is a promise upon which we stand flat-footed. Your casket will crack. Your lungs will heave. Your ears will hear the sound of resurrected Canadian geese. And you will attend the mother of all family reunions with honors and treasures given for how each one lived in this life. This resurrection will happen on an appointed day. Maybe a Tuesday. I’m betting Sunday. And what a day it will be.

This resurrection frees you from the fear of death—and not just physical death when you depart the body. The resurrection frees you from the fear of every death you face between now and then—those “dying-daily” deaths. There is no other way to do good works. Death must be at work in you so that life is at work in others. And how will you face those regular Thursday afternoon deaths? Honestly, how are you going to carry your cross on that long road to Calvary? It is quite simple: The same Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you. 

Jared Longshore – March 31, 2024

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Today’s exhortation is on joy. And you might think it a bit misplaced. We are less than two weeks away from Good Friday. “Doesn’t the joy exhortation go on the other side of the cross?” Well, no. And I’m glad you brought that up.

Too many people assume that joy is simply the result of having obtained a prize. And I do not deny that there is an element of truth in that sentiment. We are to run the race to win the prize and we have not won it until we have crossed the finish line. But, joy is not so much what is bestowed upon you after you have crossed the finish line as it is the fuel which gets you across the finish line. As you have heard, our Savior endured the cross because of the joy that was set before Him.

Joy is manifestly available to you now. And that joy is limitless. How much of it would you like? Joy is available to you now. But it requires setting your mind and heart on things above. Joy is not simply the fruit of your dominion. It is the fruit of the Spirit. That fruit is accessed by faith. Look around. You have been liberated from your sin. You will never know the flames of hell. Neither will your children according to the covenant promise of God. Look around, with your heart fixed on God. He has given you all things, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours. Winter is already turning. Just look at the crocus. Winter is already turning. Christ knew that when He set His face to go to Jerusalem. And you have been given the mind of Christ.

Jared Longshore – March 17, 2024

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