Food for Thought

In my journey to become healthy one truth really impacted me, “you can’t out run bad food choices.”  It's simply a well known fact.  Most of us do it in the beginning, we run our first half marathon and then proceed to reward ourselves with a 2,000 calorie piece of cheesecake or a box of donuts, but the fact is that you simply can’t out run those foods, they are great in moderation but the daily habit of offsetting your running with a treat will catch up to you! Being healthy requires good food, exercise and most importantly time with God.

I have been asked quite a few times by people who have attempted to take up running how I stick with it, why I don’t give up.  I run in heat, I run in the cold (but I try to avoid that one), I run in the rain, and crazy wind (running in between cyclones can be challenging).  I run an average of 1400 miles a year which seems like a lot to me, but is nothing in comparison to what some runners run.  So why?  Why don’t I give up when it gets tough, and honestly it gets tough a lot!  I can tell you that if I was running to lose weight I would have quit, sure I lost about 10 lbs my first marathon training, but I gained 10 lbs the second time around and it wasn’t all muscle (those bad food choices caught up).  If I was running to glorify myself I would have quit because I am no record holder and although I know my running has improved it certainly isn’t taking me places in the runners world.  So why?  That is simple, I run for something bigger than myself, than my ego, than my waist line.  I run for God.  I run so that I can serve the Lord better.  When I run I have to fully rely on God.  There is never a run that doesn’t have some ache or pain, there is never a run that isn’t challenging in its own way.  Every run is an opportunity to trust God to get me where I am going and to reach people along the way!  I run as a living banner of hope, in my time on the street not only do I have complete focused prayer and praise time, but I have the ability to be where God needs me to be to encourage someone.  Sometimes there may be someone I get to pray with, sometimes I simply get to pray for someone as they pass by.  There may be countless people that the Holy Spirit is reaching out to as I run by with the LIFE Runners “REMEMBER the Unborn, Jer 1:5” message on my back.  I don’t know, but I do believe in divine appointments and I have seen God arrange a few in my life so far.  I run because I can and because God asked me to.  I run because we are to do everything we do for Gods glory!  We are sanctified and made Holy when we trust the Lord with our salvation through His amazing grace, and that means that everything we do can and should be an act of worship and service.  I run because my life is not my own, and this is my surrender!

Running can be a very selfish thing, it can become all about self and that is the area of our lives that God is always working on.  He wants us to see that we can serve Him in everything we do!  As someone who smoked and drank through her 20’s the fact that I am training for my 3rd marathon just reminds me of what a gift I have been given.  I will continue to run for God because that is what God has put in my heart to do.

Just like the fact that we cannot out run bad eating, we also can’t and shouldn’t take grace for granted.  I used to do everything for myself and paid little mind to what God might be asking of me.  I’m so thankful that God got a hold of me and set me back on the right path but my heart grieves for those who still seem to be hanging onto hyper-grace.  The truth is that when Jesus gets a hold of us we simply must change, He does that for us, and it is amazing to let the bonds fall off!

I fear that too many people/churches seem to miss the catch, and there is a catch.  If you go to John 8:1-12 you will find a powerful story of forgiveness

John 8:1-12

1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

This story shows the awesome forgiveness of our Lord and Savior.  Here is a woman caught in the very act of adultery, she can’t deny it, she can’t escape it, her accusers know that they have caught her, but Jesus looks the accusers in the face and defies them.  Today we see so many churches living in a teaching of hyper-grace and this is dangerous ground.  They would simply leave this story at “then neither do I condemn you” and nothing more.  BUT that is not what Jesus said and that is not what Jesus TEACHES.  He followed it with a command, he told her to “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

I used to be one of these “Christians” who left it at “neither do I condemn you” unwilling to give up my drinking and selfish ways.  It simply does not work, that is not the design.  Many Christians still commit habitual or lifestyle sins and that is a hindrance to Gods ability to use you and grow you.  Maybe it is gossip, maybe it is lying, maybe it is premarital or extramarital sex, maybe it is pornography, drinking or gambling, whatever it may be the message is clear.  Although grace does cover your sin it requires a repentant heart, a turning from, a willingness to “go and sin no more.”

Can you imagine the above story from John if the adulterous woman had behaved as we seem to more and more in society today.  If after escaping being stoned to death she rose to her feet and looked Jesus in the eyes and said “Hey Jesus thanks for getting those judgmental guys off my case, thanks for finding me not guilty, but you know what I kind of like my life and I love that man I was with so I’m just going to head back to what I was doing since you declared me not guilty!”  CAN YOU IMAGINE!  Yet that is what we do every single time we have premarital sex, every time we back stab and gossip, every time we watch pornography or questionable movies, every time we tell another lie, every time we drink ourselves into oblivion or gamble away our last dollar.  We look Jesus in the eye and thank him for his grace and then we tell Him that our lifestyle is more important than our devotion to Him.  That is hyper-grace and it is a modern day lie of satan to keep us on the path of destruction!

Its kind of like binge eating the night before a run.  Sure you can still run but its not going to be good and you will struggle.  When we indulge in things that aren’t meant for us as believers it hurts our fellowship with God, our time with Him is not as powerful as it is meant to be, there is something that stands in the way of that fellowship!

Galatians 5:17

For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

Its time to take a minute and look within and ask ourselves, “is there something that I am taking a hyper-grace attitude over?”  If so its time to let the power of those lies be broken over our lives.  Its time to truly surrender those struggle areas to God, to seek forgiveness with a repentant heart and to never return to those choices again.  God is waiting and he is ready!