What Are We Doing?

For many Christians being a Christian is a decision made once – perhaps at an altar call, perhaps as the act of baptism, publicly or privately, as a child or maybe as an adult. It’s a done deal, sealed by the Blood, and life continues. There may be increased church attendance, Bible reading at times and a comfortable assurance that one’s final destination is and always will be Heaven.

Of course, this kind of feel-good theology has to ignore all the Scriptures that admonish us to persevere and finish the race, all the parables (the ten virgins of Matthew 25, the sower of Matthew 13), and even the explicit statements of Jesus (e.g. narrow is the way…). But that’s not what I want to talk about today.

What does it mean to “finish the race”? Are we in a competition with others? No, God is clear that we will be judged according to what each of us has done (2 Cor. 5:10) not in comparison to what others have done.

If we’re not in competition, perhaps God just means that we are to hang in until the end, not give up, and cross the finish line. Perhaps. But I came across a verse in Jeremiah this morning that increased my suspicion that God wants more – much more. If it was simply a matter of persevering until we cross the finish line, we might just as well be waiting for a bus. After all, waiting for a bus can certainly take stick-to-itiveness. But there’s a difference between crossing the finish line and waiting for a ride to come along – it’s in the running.

What is it about running? Well, for one thing, it requires effort (Phil 2:12). Running strengthens us (James 1:2-4). And running purifies us (1 Tim 6:11-14). If we are to be the bride of Christ and He is coming back for a pure bride (2 Cor. 11:2), I think that, at least for me, some exercise is in order.

The passage this morning in Jeremiah (6:28-30) caught my attention because there God is talking to the church (as far as I am aware, only the church is called silver in the Bible). God is putting them through the refining process (another thing privilege only experienced by believers). But instead of purification, the refining has no effect; the dross remains.

The church in this passage is still called silver, but it is rejected silver (6:30). God had placed hills and valleys along the path of their lives. He sent times of refreshing and times of unimaginable thirst. But instead of running the race, I think they waited for the finish line to come to them.