Keep Your Torch Lit

Therefore, 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.
Hebrews 12:1 (NIV)

The Greeks had a race in their Olympic games that was strangely unique. The winner of this race was not the runner who finished first. The person declared the winner was the runner who finished with his torch still lit.

The flame of our torches is our faith, our trust, our hope, and our confidence in Jesus Christ. We want to run our race in this life crossing the finish line less concerned about whether we cross first or cross strong, and more concerned with keeping our torches lit—our conviction still anchored in Jesus.

In our race of life, we are sure to encounter resistance, difficulty, opposition, emotional drain, fatigue, and weakness. These realities will tire you. They will deplete you. They will challenge you. They will demand a lot of you. This is to be expected. If you are attempting to do anything in life, Satan is going to try to block you. If you’re trying to become something strong in life, the enemy is going to try to stand in your way.

If you have dreams and aspirations and goals and desires…
If you want to walk by ordered steps…
If you want to live out of the power of an anointing…
If you want to prove through your life that you’ve been chosen and predestined…
If you love Jesus and you want to walk by faith and not by sight…
If you put your hand to the plow and are determined to move forward…

…you are going to do so at times against a very strong headwind.

Before those moments of opposition arise, you must decide that even if you can’t make it fast and you can’t make it strong, you can make it with your torch still lit, because you’re not going to quit.