Dear Church,

The writer of Hebrews encourages the church to “Throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and run with perseverance the race marked out for us” (Hebrews 12:1).  This means real change requires cleaning our house, “throw off” are the strong words that are used.  When we decide to clean our spiritual life, each one must figure out what needs to be thrown off or what changes are needed in our life.

This begins with asking ourselves the question: what is slowing me down in my spiritual walk? It is amazing how the Holy Spirit will reveal to us when we are honest about this question.  He will reveal to us, “everything that hinders”, these may not be sin but are mere hindrances that affect our spiritual life.  Some of these are ‘good things’ in life but they are hindering the ultimate thing in life which is to run the race marked for us. Then he tells us to throw off the ‘sin that so easily entangles us’, these are the sins that have the greatest advantage against us, the ones we have a natural draw towards, the ones that entangle us ‘easily’.  Each one of us knows what they are. The appeal is, in the power of the Holy Spirit to throw them off and to run our faith journey with perseverance.

Let us spend time today, talking to God about where we need to do cleaning in our life. Confess our sin to him and ask for Spiritual strength to do the hard work of change.

Be Encouraged,
Mathews