Restarting The Race

 

        It was back in the old days…Dad, Mom, my brothers, sister, and me were all together in the Ford Aerostar van as we accompanied my father to an out-of-the-way place called Campwood, Texas.  Dad is a preacher, and he was considering laboring with a congregation there.  Back then, children didn’t have DVD players and video games to occupy hours in the car, so we had to improvise.  We counted cows, played some made-up game with the slack in the seat belts, and on this particular trip, my brother, David, and I began pretending we were in a race with the other cars on the road.  As the day wore on, and we grew tired of the journey, we would comment to one another, “what if we had to start at the beginning of “the race” again.  For years after that day, we still occasionally jested about how bad it would be to have to go all the way back to the beginning of that little game, be that young again, and lose all the progress we’d made in our lives.

 

            It’s funny how things change in your mind as time passes.  In life, years come and go, troubles inevitably enter, and for most everyone the thought of being able to go back to childhood and avoid some mistakes and hardships is a welcome vision.  But, of course, that is not possible.

 

            But the wonderful thing is, we can actually do something even better than reentering our earlier days to fix mistakes.  We were all created by the most holy, powerful, and loving God.  And though we all have sins (Romans 3:23), he has provided a way in which we can have those sins “blotted out,” or removed completely from our record (Isaiah 43:25; Acts 3:19).  Everyone who will believe in Jesus Christ, repent of sins (Acts 2:38), Confess Christ’s name (Romans 10:8-10), and be baptized into Christ to have sins washed away (Galatians 3:26-27; Acts 22:16) can appear blameless before God on the Day of Judgment (Philippians 1:10), if they will be faithful until death (Revelation 2:10).

 

            Do you yearn to restart your race in order to undo some missteps of the past?  Simply look to Jesus, and lay aside the sins that ensnare you (Hebrews 12:1-2).  Obey the gospel and be saved today!

----Darrell Powell

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