Running On Empty

                Back in the 80s track and field was a very popular sport to follow....at least to those of us who liked to run. We were very familiar with the exploits of men like Bill Rodgers and Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett. Runner's World and Runner's Magazine were on the newsstands everywhere....and we were all waiting for the yearly runner's guide to shoes. I remember going from Brooks to New Balance to Saucony....but I don't remember the order.
                World class runners are a special breed of athlete. They run every day....and it is their life. They run in any kind of weather....and they run when they do not feel well....and they run through pain. And it all boils down to the last few seconds on the track....unless they are marathoners....which is whole different story.
                 I've known people who had run every day of their life for going on fifty years! I miss running so much that on my weekly walk....with my wife....as we near my truck at the end of the walk....I try to run the last fifty yards....thinking that maybe....maybe....I can some day run the track again. I can hardly get up off the ground because of my knees....and I have some other issues....but I still think of that track.
                 That is only a lead-in friends....the topic is this....the Christian....whether he is a lousy 'runner'....or a world class runner....(I'm speaking metaphorically....I would be of the former....and John Piper of the latter)....he or she is not only in a battle every day of their lives....but just about every hour of every day of their lives!
                  If I drop my guard for one day....by dropping my guard I mean that for one day I would not read God's word....or watch every word out of my mouth....or thought in my head....or even go one day without listening to a sermon by someone like Spurgeon or Lloyd-Jones or MacArthur or Sproul....(there are many others)....If I go one day without hearing God's Word preached....I become noticeably weak....running on empty. My mind might wander....or I might waste....just waste most of the day....doing the stupidest things or thinking the stupidest thoughts that you could possibly imagine!
                   The metaphor is running....but even in running there is a fight...(another metaphor)....a fight to keep going....to pick oneself up off the sofa to get out the door....even if the temperature is single digits....or in this case....a fight to put literally every thought and decision before us....every single day....on the grid of the Word of God....while cognizant and vigilant to all of the warnings that are there in it for us!
                   What it boils down to is how much one loves to run. Love is the key. How much does one love their son....or their daughter....enough to pray for him or her in every quadrant of every day of every year? 
                   If we are not working every day of our lives....in whatever manner we might have even a hint of a gift....to bring glory to the one who had nails driven through His wrists....for those who....without His calling and dragging....would have paid absolutely no attention to the gospel offered....until the day we passed into perdition....then how....how could we bring glory to Him? And if there is no sparkle in our eye....and no chill just thinking of our Savior and Redeemer and coming King....then how could that be considered....love?