Run in such a way as to get the prize.

It is amazing how much the hymn in the previous post speaks to both the reality and thanks I feel in my life right now. God is so good to reveal to us, in His time, what changes He desires for us, and His true character and face.

If you re the reading type, check out chapter 16 of J.I. Packer's Knowing God. It is entitled "Goodness and Severity" and it is brilliant.

"Earlier in Romans, Paul addressed the self-satisfied non-Christian critic of human nature as follows: "God's kindness leads you toward repentance"... "You... pass judgement on them and yet do the same things" - yet God has borne with your faults , the very faults which you regard as meriting his judgement when you see them in others, and you ought to be very humble and very thankful."

Its hard to realize that I don't love God as I ought, or give Him thanks as I ought. But the Grace of God is that He loved us first... and while we were still sinners. I don't have to try and fix all of my faults to make God love me, God already loves me. Now I just have to go about loving Him more.

Paul wrote to Tim "pursue righteousness". The Bible is literally saturated with language telling us that we should thirst for God, that we should treasure the kingdom, that we should run the race in such a way as to win. Most of all we should love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength... These are active participles. We need to be doing them. It is true that the work on the cross is complete, we add nothing to it. But, we should be pursuing our God.

I know I for one am tired of being lazy. Who's with me?

It truly is like training for a race. The more we pray, and reject sin, and try and set a Godly example of Christian freedom, the easier it will be to get up the next time we fall. God wants us to be soldiers for him, but believe me, being a soldier is not an overnight transformation. You learn to salute, you learn rank, you learn to shoot, you learn tradition and history. In the same way we have to run after learning to worship, learning to learn from those more mature, learning to fight sin, and learning the Bible.

God chose us, and God loves us. And now that He has given us truth, lazy is the only word to describe not running after it. Like the hymn says (and Jeremiah) , our heart is deceitful, God is truth.

Ill let Dr. John Piper finish this up...

Therefore, I conclude that Jesus' demand to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength means that every impulse and every act of every faculty and every capacity should be an expression of treasuring God above all things. Jesus warned that this most important of all demands would be widely forsaken in the last days. "Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold" (Matt 24:12, NASB).
Beware lest your love for God grow cold in these days. Remember, we will love him to the degree that we know him. And remember that only Jesus can make him known in truth and fullness (Matt 11:27). Therefore, look steadily at Jesus and pray that he would reveal God as compellingly beautiful. "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9).

Praise God.