A Great Cloud of Witness

A Marathon a grueling 26 mile race. The best time that we have on record for a marathon is 2 hours and 1 minute by a man from Kenya. He achieved this time at the Berlin Marathon in 2018. If my math is right, that means this person is running at pace of 13 miles an hour.

When I googled how fast can the average person run I got an answer of about 10 miles a hour. Which is not bad. But the question is for how long? How long can the average person run 10 miles a hour? 100 yards? 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, full mile? I would bet the average person could not keep up a pace of 10 mph for 2 hours. But the record holder averaged 13 miles per hour for over 2 hours or 13 miles mph for 2 hours. That crazy.

Now I have never ran a marathon, but I can image you need a lot of encouragement to finish that long of a race. Most of time when you watch a marathon they encourage, the supports, the fans are in one of two places: The starting line or the finishing line. Now too many people care to see when you reach the 16 mile mark.

As Christians, that is also when it seems we get the most encouragement to run our race of faith. At the beginning, whether we call that baptism or confirmation or conversion, there is always plenty of people there cheering you on. The other place we get a lot of encouragement is at the end of our life’s race. People will come to a person of age and say, “Hang in there sister your all most home. We all need those encouraging people at beginning of our Christian race. Notice where the Bible tells us Jesus is at when it comes to our faith.

The Bible tells us that Jesus is the author of our faith. Jesus is our beginning into the faith. Jesus is encouraging us to run our race. Also notice that Jesus is the finisher of our race as well. Jesus will be there at the need of your race called life and encourage you with well done good and faith servant.

But what about the middle? What about mile 13, 14, 15, 16? Who is there to encourage you on at the stop in life no one cares about in less or course your someone the world considers famous or rich. Who encourages at these points in our lives?

Again the passage tells that we are surround by a great cloud of witness and because of this great crowd we should do all that we can to win the race of life. This great cloud of witness are those brothers and sisters that have went to heaven before you. How do they encourage us to keep pressing on to the prize? Let me illustrate for you. In fall of 2018 spring of 2019, I was asked I would like to have a book, actually a set of books. The complete works of John Wesley. I have them on my shelf in my office and I read them and refer to them from time to time. John Wesley cheers me on in my race to follow Jesus through these books.

Brothers and sister encourage us everyday as we strive to get through this life’s problems. A kind word, a loving gesture and plain old friendships with plain old people can be a source of encouragement.

So encouragement helps us win the race! Second, if we are going win the race called life we have to get rid of the weights that life puts on us. We have to get rid of sin. I don’t know about you but I need these people in my life. People that will help me put aside all the weight of the world.