Thoughts of Grace

Lay all our weights at the foot of the cross

Hebrews 12:1-2
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about
with so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight,
and the sin which doth so easily beset us,
and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;
who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,
despising the shame,
and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

There are weights which are not sins in themselves,
but which become distractions and stumbling blocks
in our Christian progress.
One of the worst of these is despondency.
The heavy heart is indeed a weight that will surely
drag us down in our holiness and usefulness.

The failure of Israel to enter the land of promise
began in murmuring, or,
as the text in Numbers literally puts it,
“as it were murmured.”
Just a faint desire to complain and be discontented.
This led on until it blossomed
and ripened into rebellion and ruin.
Let us give ourselves no liberty ever to doubt God
or His love and faithfulness to us in everything and forever.

We can set our will against doubt
just as we do against any other sin;
and as we stand firm and refuse to doubt,
the Holy Spirit will come to our aid and
give us the faith of God and crown us with victory.

It is very easy to fall into the habit
of doubting, fretting and wondering
if God has forsaken us
and if after all our hopes are to end in failure.
Let us refuse to be discouraged.
Let us refuse to be unhappy.
Let us “count it all joy”
when we cannot feel one emotion of happiness.
Let us rejoice by faith, by resolution, by reckoning,
ad we shall surely find that God will make the reckoning real.
~~~Selected