BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Of course, if you really want to finish your faith race with that kind of triumph, you’ll have to put your whole heart into it. You can’t act like the street sweeper did that day and be content to just creep along at a snail’s pace. You must run like you’re in it to win it. You must be determined to go the distance and give the race everything you’ve got. As the great Christian writer Andrew Murray once put it, you must “judge everything in your life by one standard: ‘Can it help me in the race?’” Personally, I think that’s a marvelous question—one that all of us as believers should frequently ask. We can find the answer to it just by looking in the Bible. It’s full of scriptures that tell us how we can best run our race. Take Hebrews 12:1-2, for instance. It says: “Wherefore 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, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith....” Have you ever seen sprinters or marathon runners get ready to race? They don’t load themselves down with heavy clothes, backpacks and shopping bags. They “lay aside every weight.” They get rid of anything that would slow them down. As spiritual runners we should do the same. We should get rid of anything in our lives that would draw us off course and tempt us to sin. We shouldn’t load ourselves down with the world’s trash. We shouldn’t go to movies that glorify immorality, or watch TV shows filled with profanity, adultery, fornication and all kinds of other sin. We shouldn’t stand around the water cooler at the office gossiping or flirting with someone else’s spouse. “But Gloria,” you might say, “everyone in the world does that stuff!” So what? The world is crazy! They don’t know God. They’re following Satan and they can’t tell right from wrong. They’re living in darkness, so for them sin is normal. But you’re a Christian! You’ve been born of the Light. Sin isn’t normal for you. You’ll never be happy living the way the world does. You’ll never be satisfied doing things that are contrary to God’s Word. They might bring you pleasure for a season, but they always end in misery and death. So stay away from those things! When you find yourself in the wrong place, talking to the wrong people, and you realize you’re headed for trouble, cut the conversation short and walk away. Go somewhere more wholesome and find someone to talk to who knows Jesus. When you catch yourself watching some form of “entertainment” that promotes sin and makes it look attractive, turn it off. Open your Bible or tune in to the Believer’s Voice of Victory broadcast. Spend time looking at and listening to the Word. Your eyes and ears are a gateway to your heart. If you fill them with the devil’s stuff, trouble comes. If you fill them with the Word, faith comes—and faith is what you want! When you have it you can run like the winner God created you to be. You can conquer anything the devil tries to throw at you. You can triumph over every problem. Because “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4)! Moving Everest May Take Time Another vital instruction from Hebrews 12:1 that will go a long way toward helping you in your spiritual race is this: “Run with patience.” Patience is a fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23, The Amplified Bible). Along with love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, it was born into you when you were born again. Patience is a spiritual force that keeps you from succumbing to negative circumstances. Patience will prevent you from giving up or giving out when you’re under pressure, and cause you to stay steady and strong. Ken calls faith and patience “the power twins,” because patience undergirds faith and keeps it going. It keeps our faith in force until what we’re believing for comes to pass. That’s important because, although faith always brings results, they aren’t always instantly visible. If they were, everyone in the world would be living by faith. But that’s not how it is. Faith projects often take time. Ken and I found this out back in the early days when we were just getting started in the faith life. One of the first things we believed God for was to get out of debt. Talk about moving a mountain! To us, that debt looked as big as Mount Everest! Creditors were calling, threatening to sue us over unpaid bills. We were driving an old, broken-down car. We had children to feed and hardly any money to live on. It was a pressurized situation. But we took our faith stand and stayed with it. We not only quit borrowing money, we faithfully declared the Word over the situation. We spoke to that mountain of debt and we called it paid, in Jesus’ Name! Months went by and it didn’t look like much was happening. But we didn’t give up and say, “This faith junk just isn’t working. Let’s go buy a new car on credit.” Instead we let patience undergird our faith and, in a little less than a year all those bills were paid. We were debt free! BVOV : 29

• Cover