Thursday, January 22, 2009

Reaching for the Prize: Maintain the Momentum

We're in the next-to-last week of our spiritual formation campaign. If you have been keeping up with your workbook, you should now have identified some areas of your life where transformation is needed. If you've fallen behind, let me encourage you to get back to it. And if you haven't yet begun, please start ASAP! There's a pdf copy of the workbook on our website (at the bottom of the home page) or you can get a "hard" copy from me this Sunday.

Last week, we talked about how transformation happens. We choose to mortify (put to death) areas of sin in our lives, to imitate Christ in taking on His character traits, and to identify with Him in all that we do. This Sunday, we'll look at another great passage of Scripture, Hebrews 12:1-2, and we'll actually get down to practical matters. This message will challenge each of us to identify things in our lives we need to get rid of, stuff we need to put more focus on, and people we can count on to inspire us.

A few years ago, I was completing my classwork for a doctoral degree. The last thing on the agenda was a Ministry Project (which is what my degree required instead of a dissertation). Our professor said, "Let me encourage you to follow through with this. Most of the people who quit the doctoral program quit at this point." That statement stunned me. Why would someone put in all of that work (and money) only to quit when the starting line is in sight? Thankfully, with the encouragement of my wife and a few friends, I finished. So now let me give you the same challenge: Having come this far in Reaching for the Prize, don't quit now. Don't make this all merely an academic exercise. Finish strong. Put together a real spiritual growth strategy that will change your life for the better. I believe in you! See you Sunday.

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