None can run this race but the children of God, for the ground
itself is holy ground of which we read that no unclean beast is to be found
there. None but the redeemed walk there and none have ever won the prize but
those who have run this heavenly race. Now no sooner do we see by faith the race
set before us, than we begin to run from the City of Destruction, our steps being
winged with fear and apprehension. All this, especially in the outset, implies
energy, movement, activity, pressing forward, running, as it were, for our
life, escaping, as Lot, to the mountain or as the manslayer fled to the city of
refuge from the avenger of blood.
As, then, the runner stretches forward hands, and feet, and
head, intent only on being first to reach the goal, so in the spiritual race
there is a stretching forth of the faculties of the newborn soul to win the
heavenly prize. There is a stretching forth of the understanding to
become possessed of clear views of heavenly truth. There is a stretching forth
of the affections of the heart after Jesus. So that when you look at the
word "race" as emblematic of a Christian's path, you see that it is an inward
movement of the soul or rather of the grace that God has lodged in your
bosom and to which are communicated spiritual faculties, whereby it moves forward
in the ways of God, under the influences of the blessed Spirit.
[J.C. Philpot]
✞✞✞
Hebrews 12:1 ... 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,
1 Corinthians 9:24 ... Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.
Philippians 3:13-14 ... Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.❤
