Daily Devotional
You Are in a Race

August 23, 2022

Ponder This

One of these days we’re going to cross the finish line. In fifty years, many of us will not be alive; even after twenty-five years a great number will be gone; and even next year, by God’s mercies, some will have already gone on. We will have come to the end of the line. We don’t know when that’s going to be.

You may be a teen, but you might be at the very end of your course. One of these days, I’m going to breathe my last breath, but I’m not going to stop running—God helping me—until I do. I don’t want to stroll over the finish line. I want to hit the finish line with a blaze of energy and power, going for the Lord Jesus Christ. You may say, “Well, you’ll be an old coot.” It makes no difference. “Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). That’s the reason you ought to be an athlete—no matter what your physical condition or your economic condition. You are in a race, and that race is not over until you bow your head like the Lord Jesus and say, “It is finished. It is done.” Don’t give up before you get there.

• How do passages like this one help give perspective to everyday life?
• Where are you tempted to stop running the race God has given you?

Practice This

Take time in prayer today to renew your commitment to running the race God has set before you. Ask Him to empower you with the strength to endure to the end.