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Faith to Run the Race
Isaiah 35:3 “Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees".
This message is addressed to the intercessors and praying
saints who today are worn out, weary, tired, mentally drowned and emotionally
discouraged. These are those whose knees have become feeble.
The knees in Scripture speak about the prayer life of an individual.
When the knee becomes feeble, prayer is weakened.
Some of us have been praying for years and years for loved
ones away from God, for situations that remain unchanged, and doors that have
been shut and refuse to open. We have prayed and prayed, we have fasted, claimed precious
promises, stood on the Word of God and engaged in warfare against our mortal enemy to seemingly
no avail. We have almost given up. Our knees have become frail; we have or are on the verge
of giving up on Hope.
Hope is the anchor of our soul (Hebrew 6:19). The Greek word for “soul” is Psuche from
whence comes the English word “Psyche". Whenever we speak of the soul, we speak of our emotion, our
thoughts and our will. The soul that is anchored is like a vessel fastened in the harbor, it will undulate
with the ocean’s waves but it will remain fixed. An unanchored vessel however, will drift and be
carried by the current where dangerous waters will toss against it until it submerges into the deep.
A submerged soul is a downcast one, dejected and depressed. Am I describing you?
In Proverb 13:12 we read: “ Hope deferred makes the heart sick”. Are you worried sick?
Is your heart aching and breaking?
Are you thinking, “ What good does it do to pray?" Is the time I spend in the praying closet
worth anything?” “Has God forgotten me? “Are my past sins too gross to be forgiven? Am I being punished
for them?” Granted, you may not verbalize those thoughts, but you are meditating about them in your heart.
Your thoughts are not on God but on your circumstances, they are not on things that are lovely and of good
report (Philippians 4:8), God is not magnified in your heart, you are not making God bigger that all your problems.
You have cast away your confidence in His faithfulness and you doubt His justice and with the increasing of your
trials, you have become weary.
The Psalmist cried out: “let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your
sight, o Lord my strength and my Redeemer". Psalm 19:14. The words of our mouth may be okay, we are
still singing His songs, we are still praising Him with our lips but our “soul” is not blessing Him,
our soul is in depression and depression is nothing but repressed anger. We have been listening to the voice
of the one who accuses God to us, we have harbored his lies in our heart and they have become sin to us. This
explains why the psalmist goes on to say (verses 12 and 13): "cleanse me
from secret faults (doubts, unbelief, presumption, arrogance); keep me from the
great transgression (rebellion)".
IGNORANCE OF SATAN’S DEVICES
Satan is determined to defeat us by causing us to get weary so that He can steal from us the precious
things of the kingdom: hope faith and love. Gifts and ministries will pass away, but these 3 virtues will
abide forever. He uses God’s delays to make us doubt His love so that we loose our faith in him,
and without faith there is no hope because it is faith that gives us the assurance about the things we
are hoping for. Hope, in fact, has been defined “the telescope, which sees what faith has obtained.
Doubting God’s integrity leads to unbelief and unbelief leads to hopelessness.
As he looked into the future into our days, Daniel saw what Satan would do. He wrote: “ And he shall
speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High…” Daniel 7:25.
Notice, the accuser uses words to make us tired so that we let go of the weapons God has given us to wear him
down. Those weapons are, prayer, Jesus’ name, Jesus blood, perseverance and the Word of God versus his words.
The greatest attack is against the Word of God in our mouth. The writer of the book of Hebrew exhorts us
to hold fast to our confession, and not to throw away our confidence, in other words, do not grow weary,
do not quit, do not doubt, do not waver, do not be intimidated. (Hebrew 4:14; 10:35).
We must anchor our lives to the things He has spoken to us or the ship of our life will drift away, pass the
harbor and get wrecked.
Yes, the saints are the ones who are supposed to wear the devil down. Consider the parable of the
unjust judge in Luke 18:1-8: "And he spoke a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not
to faint; Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither
regarded man: and there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying,
avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for a while: but afterward he said
within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; yet because this widow
troubles me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge said. And shall not God avenge his own
elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bears long with them? I tell
you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh,
shall he find faith on the earth? (Emphasis mine).
In this parable the Lord exhorts us to continue in prayer without giving up. This will wear down the unjust
judge, alias the devil. At the same time, Jesus is contrasting the unjust judge with God who is the just
Judge. In my paraphrasing he is saying here that He is Just and He is not reluctant to answer our prayers.
We don’t have to wear Him down, but He is longsuffering toward us (he bears long). In other words, he is
waiting for us to develop that tenacity of faith, which won’t let go but perseveres in times of trials
without doubting. This is the kind of faith that we need in these last days just before His
returning. When He sees that kind of faith in us, then His avenging of us is sudden and instant.
SEEING THINGS FROM GOD’S PERSPECTIVE
In order to develop this kind of persevering faith we have need of patience and endurance.
To better understand the process let’s define these three words:
- Perseverance is persistence in doing what’s right.
- Patience is doing nothing, just waiting.
- Endurance is the joining of patience and perseverance; it is the right tension between the two, which produces
steadfastness in purpose. To endure means to continue regardless of opposition. To endure is to P.U.S.H or to Pray Until Something Happens.
We need to push through pain toward the ultimate victory. This requires a level of intensity and diligence in
prayer that goes beyond the ordinary. It’s a prayer that is unrelenting and desperate, coupled with a faith that keeps on
believing the trustworthiness of God in the face of all odds.
One time the prophet Jeremiah, in weariness of soul, began to doubt God’s justice because the wicked was
prospering and evil seemed to have the ascendancy. When like us he cried, “How long Lord, how long? “ God
answered him: “If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied
thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace,
wherein thou trusted, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling
of Jordan? “ (Jeremiah 12:5).Because of what’s ahead, God is preparing the intercessors to race against horses.
This requires stamina and fortitude, the two main ingredients of endurance.
The building up of endurance can be compared to the discipline of a track racer. A track star is powerful to keep
on going and not grow weary. He is the one who has applied discipline to train correctly through a
proper diet in the Word of God, who has prepared his lungs by inhaling and
exhaling the fresh breath of the Spirit of God, who has learned to trim the fat
from his flesh through fasting and prayer and who wears only the track shoes of
the Peace of God that bruises Satan under his feet. However the foremost requirement
of a track runner is his determination to win, to run the course and to reach
the finishing line.
Jesus is our track star. The Bible says that He steadfastly set His face to go to
Jerusalem. (Luke 9:51). We know what Jerusalem meant to our Lord. It was first of all the place of intense,
distressed prayer at the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olive, it was the
place of total surrender to the Cross, but it was also the place of His
ascension at the right hand of the throne of God from where He rules with all
authority and power. Jerusalem was the finish line; the completion of the work
the Father had given Him to do. He steadfastly set His face to go to
Jerusalem.
We too as intercessors have our Jerusalem which is first of all the place of desperate praying, the place where
we pick up our cross and follow Him, being willing to lay down our desires, our
expectations, our wants in exchange for His purposes, His desires and plans to
be accomplished through our intercession. It is the place where we say
“nevertheless, Thy will be done. Then for us too “ascension”[1]
will take place, even the release of greater authority in prayer,[2]
even the authority to set the captives free for it is written of Jesus that when
He ascended He led captivity captive. (Ephesians 4:8).
We must remain in this state of concentrated prayer and struggle until we reach the climax of God’s will for
our life, until our mission is completed, until we reach the finishing line, the end of our race.
THE TRACK RACE
In the natural there are different kinds of track races: short distance, long distance, marathon and triathlon.
No one starts with a strong faith and so we start by running the short distance race to move eventually into the
long distance one and it is here that we grow weary. Those who have been on a marathon (which they tell me is 24 miles long),
have been building up endurance for the triathlon.
In triathlon three types of running are required. The first part of the contest is swimming. This is praying with perseverance
when you can barely keep your head above the waters of your circumstances while fighting all kinds of currents that
would sidetrack you from your course. Some give up after this first portion of the race.
The bike ride, the second segment of the competition, does not always take place on flat ground but it requires
riding uphill and against the wind, over rough terrain and narrow places. By the time you dismount the bike you are so tired
that the last thing you want to do is running, which is the third portion of the race.
At this point many quit the race altogether, but God has his remnants. They are the heroes of faith described in the last
portion of Hebrew 11, of whom the world is not worthy. They are part of that great cloud of witnesses who ran before us.
They are exhorting us to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that
is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith,” Hebrew 12:1.
"Lay aside every weight”. I was told that in one popular sport, the players in training are expected to run
with weights on the ankles so that they can run with more speed when the game is on and the weights are removed.
Up to this point in time we have been running the race with those things that have weighed heavy upon our hearts and
minds, we have carried anxieties, worries, concerns, fretfulness and even fears, but now we must take them off because
there is an acceleration coming; we must run faster if we are to contend with horses.
"And the sin which so easily ensnares us". ” The sin which ensnares us is unbelief, the opposite
of faith through which the cloud of witnesses ran their race and overcame.
"Looking unto Jesus" Let us not look at other contestants, but let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus,
the author and the finisher of our faith who ran with endurance to obtain the joy awaiting at the end of His race.
To the weary saint the Lord says: “Take MY yoke upon you and I will give you rest". He says, "Let go of your
anxieties and let me take over. Trust in me to resolve your situation that looks
disappointing or even hopeless. Take my burden, my agenda, pray what I want you to pray and you will find rest, the
rest that only I can give. I am teaching you to pray from a position of rest as I build in you the faith that
takes Me at My word when the circumstances seem to deny the truth of my promises to you. You need this kind of faith
to be able to endure to the end. Therefore, do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of
endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: For
yet a little while, and He who is coming
will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him.
But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.[3]
Heb 10:35-39
[1] The word “ascension” means to climb, to rise, to move upward, to proceed from an inferior to a superior degree,
to reach a higher level of authority and influence in private and corporate intercession.
[2] Not shouting, shaking, religious frenzy not even how long but it’s all about authority = “Jesus
I know and Paul I know but who are you?
[3]The word “saving”, from the Greek “Peripoiesis” (Strong #4047), can also be translated “preservation” and
“possession”. The salvation or the possession of the soul takes place when the spirit rules over the emotions.
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