Run With Endurance

Scripture Reading: Hebrews 12:1-2

On November 5, 1994 George Foreman did what no one thought was possible.  At the age of forty-five he regained the heavy-weight championship of the world.  It was a title he lost to Muhammad Ali twenty years earlier.  George Foreman never had the chance to fight Ali again and retired in 1977 after losing to Jimmy Young.  But Saturday November 5, 1994 will go down in boxing history as the greatest comeback of all time.  It is unlikely that any other forty-five year old man will ever be a boxing champion again.

            From now on George Foreman will not be thought of as the invincible twenty-five year old boxer who let Ali beat him.  He will always be remembered as the forty-five year old man who just wouldn't quit and wouldn't give up and as a result became a champion again.  We are all remembered mostly by how we finish the race and not how we started or where we were at the half way point.  Jim Baker, and Jimmy Swaggert will probably not be remembered for anything good they did, but rather for the sins they committed.

            There are a lot of "used to be" people in the church.  They used to be faithful, they used to be loving, they used to be workers, they used to be prayer warriors.  The sad thing is most of them will not be remembered for what they used to be but what they became.  No wonder we are told to "run the race with endurance."  It's important how you start, and how you compete, but in the end the prize goes to those who finish.