ON THE VANGUARD

MISSION: STRAIGHTAWAY
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

The match strikes and the theme begins. You know the theme, even if you never watched the T.V. show. Mission: Impossible. I was too young to see every episode, but I saw the movies. I loved how the plot twisted just as I thought I had it figured out. I enjoyed the character changes, trickery, and the death defying missions of Tom Cruise's character Ethan Hunt. But as much as I may want to accept his missions, I have my own mission that I must choose to accept. I have been charged to accept
MISSION: STRAIGHTAWAY.
The Hebrews 12:1 passage is right on the heels of the great faith chapter of Hebrews 11 where we are given a glimpse of the great one in the Bible who acted on a faith in Christ. We're given the names of Abraham, Moses, Rahab, and David to name a few. And we're told of the crossing of the Red Sea, the victory over Jericho, the persecution of the prophets and saints. But Hebrews 11 leaves us with these words in verse 40, "God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would [those before us] be made perfect. Did you catch that? There is something better for all the saints, but we must stand on the shoulders of those before us. We do have a gathering of believers who have gone before us, lived their lives and performed their deeds, and have passed the torch on to us. That vast gathering includes saints of old, like Moses, David, Daniel, Stephen, Paul, and other well known names in the Bible. But it also includes people like Polycarp, Tertullian, John Wesley and Charles Spurgeon and those who continued to spread Christianity and shape it as we know it today.
And we are challenged to be the next witnesses in this grand gathering. As such, the instruction for us is laid out in this passage. "...let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles..." We are called to run straightaway, to run without hesitation or delay. As it would be a challenge for a runner to win a race carrying a bag of rocks against others who weren't, so it is a challenge for us to run our race with sin tripping us up and weighing us down. Can we expect to take the torch and run with our sin, and still cover the ground needed to reach our goal in this race we are on? Are not those after us waiting for us at our mark to receive the torch from us?
The challenge is to run with perseverance. Perseverance defined means to persist in a state, enterprise, opposition, or discouragement. We will not reach our goal if we do not persist. We will not leave the spiritual legacy to those who follow us if we are entangled in the sin that prevents us from our goal. It is our mission to run without hesitation. So, your mission, should you choose to accept, is to run straightaway. Do you accept
MISSION: STRAIGHTAWAY?