The Big Race

 Joining in

Getting Ready
Getting in Shape
Your Trainers
Distance Training
Course Overview

Crossing the Line
Readying the Mind
Mastering the Course
Deciding to Win

Running the Race
Off we go
Orientation
Starting off right
Overview
Power to Run
Can I make it?
I might not want to
But still have lusts
Power Decision Chart
Singles need purity?
Advantages to purity
Running by God's love
The Pieces
Starting with God
Renewed with God
Confessions's Design
Responses to Sin
Results of Confession
Steps of Confession
Confession Chart
Confessional Prayer

Running the Race

Finishing Well








    




The Power to Run

A single running by God's love

We need God's love to animate us rather than our desires.
We can try all sorts of gimmicks: physical restraints, chemical interactions, or even finding a good wife, but our hearts' well water still retains the same polluted water. We need to change the source of our water from lust to love. I would like to share how you do this right now. Just before I do, I realize that many of you might think you already know God. Some of you do. But how do you know?

Do you really know God?
The clearest way to discern if you really belong to God is whether you have God's true love in your soul. You might have fallen to serve your lusts for a time. This can confuse things. But ask yourself these questions:
     "Do you love others as you love yourself?
     "Is it your down deep focus in life?
     "What are you living for?"
If you know of this love and have come to know of God's love through Christ, then I would encourage you to read on but as a recommitment of your life to God and Christ. For others, this might be a whole new experience - meeting God and gaining His love!

How does Jesus give us this love?
Jesus takes away the heavy burden of our past sin and frees us with a love like His. Could there be anything more grand?! In order to restore our relationship with God, Jesus needed to take our sins away which was the reason God was angry with us. We could never earn this. We just accept God's wonderful love for us. This sets up the life of love right within our hearts.

Why do you need Jesus' love?
A young single person needs God's love to fill him or else he will look for a cheap substitute. A guy finds it in having a girlfriend and tantalizing his sexual desires. A girl finds it in a relationship. She often finds the only way to make the guy to stick to her is to offer him her body. When the desires of a youth begin to rule him, then he ends up making many unwise decisions with lifelong ramifications. Babies are born out of wedlock. Babies are killed through abortion. Women are left alone caring for a baby. And even if the guy and girl get together, their relationship has the worst foundation one could ask for. The woman knows the man does not really love her. So she will live in insecurity, or in the end seek others for more attention.

Are you more conservative?
You might insist you are not so wild as the person described above. This is quite possible. There are others, for example, who because of religious or parental restraints cannot get 'too involved' in others, so they live out their lust in a fantasy world. They have pretend partners. Through images and flicks, they are controlled. And yet they know it is phony. They hate themselves. When later they get married, they become quickly unsatisfied with their wives for they have polluted their souls. They have trained their bodies like Paslov's dogs to salivate over pictures. How are they going to get real with their wives?

From Lust to Love
When we have been operating by lusts, God's love in our lives just turns around everything in the most beautiful and wonderful way imaginable. It is like the Big Reverse. Where once you were only happy when people focus on you, now it is opposite. You are happiest when you can help care for others. It is not just a fad that passes or a religious gimmick. God's love begins to flow through you and continues on and on.

How do I get that love?
Basically there are two steps to have God's love of Christ born in our hearts. They are repentance and belief. Actually, we cannot force the process on our lives, but we can foster it. Just like a friendship, we cannot force someone to be our friend. We can only be a friend. The same is true with God. We will see something happening deep in our souls.

Repentance is a deep grief and awareness that we have really gone off the wrong road. Along with this is a healthy fear of judgment for the wrong that we have done. I personally saw myself falling down a chasm toward hell. I was so aware of my own sins, I knew I deserved to be judged. I knew I was wrong and hopeless on my own. Remorse is only being sorry for the consequence of sin. But one will get out there and do it again with the opportunity. But this insight into God's anger and our growing repulsiveness toward such things is repentance. Because of our new understanding of the wickedness of our souls, we seek for help. This leads to belief.

Belief in Christ is the second step to God's love. Belief is the actual trusting of Christ to save. He desires to cleanse and instill that new love. We are not just speaking of intellectual persuasion. Nor are we speaking of a mystical faith. Science is not contradictory to this faith even though many false things have been said. We are speaking of a real life experience where God lives in us. Jesus Christ lives in His people through the Holy Spirit.

When you see that repentance over your life against God, then cry out to God to save you. Ask Him to cleanse you by the blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross. Ask Him to fill you with His love forever. Express your willingness to be totally run by the power of His truth and love. Sometimes we do not at first have full faith. But keep crying out to God until you are convinced

  • 1) God has forgiven your sins through Jesus Christ's death on the cross (His life for yours),
  • 2) You are God's new adopted child forever,
  • 3) You want to live wholeheartedly for Him, and
  • 4) He has given you a new heart of love.

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