Winning in the game of life

I'm writing this blog at a time when Manchester United have just been crowned the 2010/2011 English Premier League Champions. They have now won the League a record 19 times and are now the team which has won this title the most having overtaken Liverpool's record of 18 League wins. This is truely great news to all Man 'U' fans but a very upsetting one for us Liverpool fans.

Watching the celebrations that took place last Saturday at old Trafford and similar ones that took place last week at Barcelona,  leaves you with the feeling of how sweet victory tastes. We all want to win, we all want to be on the winning side, to be identified with the champions. But you know what? You, yes you who is reading this blog, can be a winner; you can win in the game of life. And you know what! you can win without competing with anyone else but yourself. I have come to learn that beating myself is sometimes more difficult than beating my competitors. Excellence is nothing more than being the best you can be. And that is what God has called us to be. God didn't call us to be better than or like someone else, He made us to be the best us. He made me to be the best Barnabas I can be.

The writer of Hebrews in the Holy Scriptures gives us a liturgy of great men and women who beat themselves to become heros. Their heroic achievements are recorded in Chapter 11 of that book. Chapter 12 of the same book begins with these words,

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with patience (perserverance) the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith".

The cloud of witnesses talked about here are those heros I mentioned earlier, of whom the greatest is our Lord Jesus. These are the 'fans' watching us from the grandstands of heaven urging us to move on, "common you can make it, don't give up, we did it and so can you"; I can imagine them shouting at us.
Winning in the game of life will call for the three "Let 'us'es" seen above, which are vital for victory.

1. Let us throw off everything that hinders, what are you carrying that is hindering you or slowing you down that needs to be thrown off? What "Urgent" things do you need to throw off so as to take only that one important thing?
2. Let us run with patience the race marked out for us. How are you running the race and which race are you actually running? Could it be that you are running the rat race? or are you running someone else's race? Remember the race is not for the swift, neither is it for the rat. When Jesus came to an end of His brief sojourn here on earth, He said that "It is finished"; what was finished? The race marked out for Him.
3. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus. Are you fixing your eyes on failures or are you fixing your eyes on finishers, are you having a victim's mentality or are you carrying with you a victor's mindset? Are you motivated by faith or are you being paralyzed by fear?