Biblical Success - Running Our Race With a Personal TrainerSample

How do we best nurture the presence of our Helper?

It is actually quite simple. We nurture our relationship with our Helper using the same ingredients we would, in fact, must use to nurture any relationship - time and transparent honesty. If we short them the relationship will be stunted to that degree. We won’t have a healthy marriage if we short our spouse and neither will we if we short our Helper. He is God. He is worthy. He would have every right to demand from us anything He wants, He is God, Christ in us the hope of glory.

But our Helper doesn’t work that way. He doesn’t demand, He calls to us in a gentle quiet voice; “Come to Me, follow Me, Abide with Me, Seek Me and I will be found.” He wants us to choose Him above all else. He is a jealous God not that He needs us but that He loves us and only wants the BEST for us. And that will only be found on the narrow path. It will never be His will for us to leave the path or to place the world before The Kingdom. He will allow it but never without a fight. Our Helper is also our best friend, always loving and seeking what’s best for us.

On the other hand, we have an enemy, the construct of the world, the flesh, and the evil one and his workers. They all have an agenda opposed to our Father’s will and will constantly oppose it by suggesting thoughts that seem to be good but are not. The evil one is a liar, in fact, the father of lies, and very clever. He hides his harmful lies in pretty packages designed to deceive us. He can fool us sometimes but he can’t fool our Helper and our Helper will always warn us and urge us to reject the lie by taking it captive to Jesus.

Our problem is that we may not hear Him because of all the other noise and clatter that we allow to dominate our lives. Every great athlete is focused on his or her goal and chooses to set time apart to train toward it. The elite athlete has the same amount of time every day as his/her competitors, 24 hours. The great ones discipline their time and make time to train and meet with their coach. We will need to invest time to spend with our Helper as well. Most of our Christian Heroes, great runners, tell us that they started their day with a time with The Helper and explain that it was essential for them to do so to run their best.

This isn’t legalism. No one is saying that either an elite athlete or a successful disciple of Christ has to train. To train is a choice each one makes for themselves based on how they value the prize they train for. What prize are you training for?

Is your prize the upward call of God in Christ Jesus?

As in “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:12-14)

Shouldn’t it be?