Lose the Weight

This year I am trying to simplify and streamline my life and ministry. Oftentimes after a long season of doing similar things you realize that you have picked up a lot of stuff on the way. Having spent 37 years doing ministry and working with people that were trying to help others find Jesus, I have picked up a plethora of ideas and stuff. If I could see what the Lord sees, I know that there would be things attached to me and stuck in corners of my life that are taking up space that haven't been used for years.

Hebrews 12, listed below, encourages me in several ways. It says that I am not alone. I am surrounded by others that have run the race I am running and have fought the good fight of faith. So I can take comfort in that. And then it says to lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Weights and sins can bog all of us down and make life more difficult. This duo can keep us from fulfilling the purposes and plans of the Lord in our lives. Weights could be people that have terrible attitudes and take so much of our time with so little positive coming out of it. Weights could also be letting yourself get involved with activities that you have no business in being a part of. And of course we all know what sins are...those things that take us away from God and outside of His protection and provision. Sin misses the mark.

So I am losing the weight this month and lightening things up so that I can do a better job of loving people and helping them have a personal relationship with Jesus. What are you going to lose?

"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith..."