Let’s Please The Cloud Of Witnesses
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.” (Hebrews 12:1-3)
Today’s Morsel: Whether we like to think so or not, but we are crowd pleasers. Sports teams wants to please the crowd. Soldiers marching in a parade want to please the crowd. The child chosen to have the led role in the school play, wants to please the crowd. The evangelist chosen to minister at General Conferences, wants to please the crowd. The actor chosen to be in a movie, wants to please the crowd. The writer of Hebrews states, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” He says, you’ve got to please the crowd by how you live your faith out before others, each, and every day. He says that the patriarchs of old are watching the race, and because we are on their team, run to win. He reaches back to the eleventh chapter where he tells us of the faith of patriarchs who went before us and their races. Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jospeh, Moses, Joshua, Rahab, David, Samuel, Samson, Japheth, Gideon, and many others, these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39-40) They ran and set a good example for us. And so, now, they are our cloud of witnesses, to see if we are going to keep running the same race that they ran while looking and keeping our eyes on Jesus, as they did, who is the author and finisher of all our faith. Jesus is the one that puts us in the race, and He will be the one at the finish line to welcome us home and to say, Well done.
Sing: If when you give the best of your service, telling the world that the Savior has come, be not dismayed, when friends don’t believe you, He’ll understand and say, “Well done!”
Thought For Today: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.” (1 Corinthians 9:24)
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