WE have just seen what you readers so often see—a dog chasing a cat. The cat’s
tail looked very large as she ran from one corner to another, over a fence, and finally up a tree where the dog could not reach her. Cats are such good climbers that they generally escape the dogs that chase them.
Small dogs especially seem very fond of chasing cats. But in today’s picture the dogs are after something else. How eager they look! How closely they watch this bird! What a prize! And yet a dangerous looking one, for the bird looks fiercer than the dogs, and is ready to peck the one that dares get within reach.
There are all kinds of prizes in this world. Many of us are working for them. Prizes are generally offered to the winner in a contest or race of some kind. Some of the prizes we win help us. Some of them harm us because they draw our energies or our hearts away from better things. At best they are of little importance for they are only for time.
But there is a race, and a prize at the end of it of very great importance. This is the Christian race. The apostle Paul says, “Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus.” Heb. 12:1, 21Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, 2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1‑2). And in Phil. 3:13, 1413Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:13‑14). “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
The Christian race is a long one and a hard one. It lasts all through our Christian life and for some of us that is many years. But think of the blessed and wonderful portion that awaits us above, seated with Christ, all brought about by the shedding of His precious blood on the cross, and ours ONLY through faith in that blood. Is not this a prize worth striving for?
The apostle tells us to “lay aside every weight”. If you have ever seen boys racing, you know they don’t run with heavy coats and hats on, and heavy bundles under their arms. No. They throw these all aside. So, if we would run a good race we, too, will throw aside the weights that hinder us.
What are these weights? Sin is one of them. We cannot keep our eye on Jesus if we allow sin of one kind and another. Other weights that hinder us are worldly cares, worldly pleasures, a desire to be rich—in short, anything that attracts the eye from Jesus.
Dear reader, this Christian race is the only one worth running. Are you in it? If you are, throw off the weights, that you may run more easily, and enjoy more fully the prize that awaits you.
ML 04/14/1912