When I was a kid, I loved everything that involved running.
When I was a kid, I loved everything that involved a ball and running.
When I was a kid, I loved to watch my muscles grow, and to grow, they required a “discipline” of sort.
When I was a kid, I ran all the drills, followed all the rules, worked hard at home and at school, and tried to eat all the healthy foods that a kid growing up on a farm was given to enjoy.
When I was a kid, I was 15…16….17….18….19…..20….+……29…..53…..54…..and I did not fully grow up……EVER……from being a kid in some ways.
Today, I believe we FEEL the need…..
To grow up,
To figure out,
To educate,

We seem to think we need to know EVERYTHING we need to know by the time we head off to college (or at least by the time we graduate from college).
THAT’S JUST NOT TRUE!!!!!

We have heard the words and read the words, and can even recite the words……Life is not a sprint but a marathon.

BUT do we really believe the words or just like the saying?

The Bible is clear….all the time.  Life is Both…..a sprint and a marathon.
As a young man and woman, we need God.
As a middle aged man and woman, we need God.
As a person who is in the last phase of life, we need God.
Back Then……Right Now…..Later On……

WE NEED JESUS!!!!!!  WE NEED GOD! !!!!!!

LIFE TRULY IS A MARATHON OF ENDURANCE.
To run a marathon, we need a certain type of training, of discipline to prepare our bodies for the WHOLE RACE, and it’s hopefully a long race……like 103 miles (years) long.

In the Bible, the apostle Paul is one of my favorites for several reasons:
1. He liked running and sports.
2.  He lived life day by day.
3.  He messed up at times, saw his errors, repented to God, and then walked on….with God, never turning his back on his faith. Paul remembered (as Jeremiah 18 & Romans 9 proclaims, that he was a piece of clay, that God was the Master Potter, and that God would fashion Paul into a useful vessel, trimming away those qualities that so needed to be trimmed.
4. He remembered what it felt like to be lost, to be apart, separated away from God, to know ABOUT GOD, but to not really KNOW GOD.   Yes, Paul remembered what it felt like to be a lost sinner, one not saved by God’s amazing grace. That remembrance helped Paul witness to others. 
5.  Paul knew what it felt like to endure in a race, how to run into an impossible wall, how to feel like a failure, how to pray, how to talk and listen to God, and then how to push on, to endure, to run…..striving for the prize that is given to those who do…..press on to the end, to only then step into eternity with God.

In seeing Paul’s life, he learned how to compete, how to run the marathon. 
&
Paul learned that the marathon was made up of daily sprints (daily races within the long race) as he moved toward eternity in heaven.
Paul knew he needed God.
Once Paul stopped running AWAY FROM GOD and met God face-to-face, (on the road to Damascus), then at once, Paul’s life-focus changed.
Paul then learned how to run a different race, a race with an imperishable prize.
Paul sought this new & different prize, realizing that there is SO MUCH MORE TO LIFE THAN THIS EARTHLY BIRTH….LIFE….&….DEATH.
Paul met God & that moment CHANGED EVERYTHING!!!

God’s free offer of salvation led to a daily walk with God, a walk within a daily discipline and a daily control of his body, as Paul learned how to lean upon the LORD, to run the race God set before him (the marathon).
As Paul ran his NEW RACE and fought this NEW GOOD FIGHT, he ran with endurance and he no longer boxed as if beating the air….Because, once Paul became a new creature in Christ Jesus, he then began running daily with his LORD JESUS CHRIST.

And not just for himself.
Paul also ran the WHOLE race, meaning he ran alongside others running within the same NEW RACE, encouraging them as he ran alongside them, knowing that we should each “Run in such a way that you may win…..so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified” (24 & 27).

Truly, the very worst thing ever……IS to reach the end of our time and to realize we are LOST to the LORD—forever “disqualified” and now doomed to outer darkness, away from God forevermore.

So today, let us leave with this last Scripture from the writer of Hebrews as we consider the struggles we face, the discipline we need, and the way we should seek to be molded into the image of Jesus, more and more, every day. 
“All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”  (Hebrews 12:11).

Without Jesus, our righteousness is as filthy rags.
With Jesus, His righteousness is EVERYTHING!!!!

MAY WE RUN WITH THIS TRUTH TODAY, CONTINUING EVERY DAY, EVEN AFTER TODAY, UNTIL DAY WE RACE INTO HEAVEN AND FALL AT THE FEET OF JESUS CHRIST OUR SAVIOR AND LORD.