Fix your eyes on Jesus who strengthens your faith to run to the very end. Heaven is just around the corner, so run hard through the tape and finish well.
I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and I love sharing hope!
I love sharing the hope of Christ here on the radio, on Instagram and Facebook and YouTube, and I want you to know that I am deeply touched when you “like” my messages or share them with your friends on social media. I’m honored by your encouragement. Honestly, I am. But I cannot focus on accolades or how many followers I have or how many “thumbs up” a post received or how many people liked it or shared it. I can’t focus on how many views I have on YouTube. No, every day, I just want to give the Word of God, I want to encourage people in their suffering, to exalt the name of Christ, and then after that? I just want to finish well. I just want to say, “Jesus, keep me from shaming your name by grabbing the focus off of you and trying to put it on myself. Keep me from grumbling against your providence. Help me to bear my cross with a lowly, obedient spirit. Oh, Jesus, call forth your courage in my weakness and sometimes fearful heart. May I be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer. And through all the ups and downs, all the discouragements and hardships, help me to remember saints from ages past who lived out their faith at great cost to themselves and their families. Help me to remember their testimonies and to reach the finish line in one piece, glad that I’ve made it, glad that your grace brought me home. Even if I am panting and heaving, I will pray, ‘Lord Jesus, help me to finish well!’”
Don’t we all want to just do that? Don’t we all want to keep striving for the hope held out to us, reach the gates of pearl, collapse at the feet of Jesus, grab his ankles, kiss his feet, lean back on our haunches, raise our hands and, in tears, whisper, Oh Jesus, thank you. Thank you! Friend, that will be finishing well, and I invite you to join me in that invigorating journey. So, get out from under the gravity of material things; lay aside the weight of this world and run in the spirit of Hebrews 12. It says,“Therefore,” it says in the first verse, “since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.”
This life is a race and God is marked out your course and, yes, it’s filled with potholes and problems, but it’s your course. It’s your race to run with courage and hope and endurance. So let’s not shame our Lord Jesus in all that he suffered for us. Throw off everything, get rid of every weight that encumbers us. The habits that so easily entangle. The detours that beckon you down paths of unrighteousness. Because our Savior is right on the other side of the finish line and soon you shall be with the Lord forever. So, don’t slow down. Do as every good runner does. Make every effort to strive, and press on, and run through the tape fixing your eyes on Jesus, the one who will strengthen your faith to the very end. I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and although I’m in a wheelchair, this is the way I run the race marked out for me. And I hope you’ll join me in keeping a steady pace toward the goal, the heavenly prize to which God has called you. Heaven is just around the corner. So, friend, let’s run hard. Let’s run through the tape and so, finish well. Oh, and one more thing, I want to send you a copy of our Joni and Friends newsletter so just go to joniradio.org.
© Joni and Friends