craigmanderson

GOING FOR GOLD

It’s Olympic time again and we are seeing incredible feats of human achievements and also endurance.

What does it take to produce a gold winning outcome?

Do you have what it takes?

Run the video :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9nCPbbngmI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Every great achievement has behind it all the hard years of preparation, practice and pain.

Do you have what it takes?

Do you really have what it takes?

It’s not about talent, though you won’t get there without it.

It’s not about genes but that helps.

It’s not about luck but you need all you can get.

It’s not about physical strength, but you better develop what you’ve got.

It’s about whether you will get up everyday, keep going every day, keep trying every day, keep pushing every day, stay committed every day, and never, never, never let yourself say I can’t.

Jesus pushed through.

Heb 12:2  Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God. [Ps. 110:1.] (AMP)

Listen to that again in the Message Bible:

Heb 12:2  Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed–that exhilarating finish in and with God–he could put up with anything along the way: cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honour, right alongside God.

What Jesus endured was incredible! So much pain, so much shame, so much injustice. But for the joy set before Him He endured the cross.

That Joy is you.. and every person who accepts the free gift of eternal life that cost Him so much.

For every great finish there is a background of preparation, practice and pain that creates the win.

For every podium finish there’s thousands of hours of pounding the pavement, doing the laps, tired and aching muscles, disappointing results and confronting change.

We all want the podium finish, we all want the gold medal, the blue ribbon, BUT are we able to pay the cost of the journey?

DON’T EVER THINK THAT YOU ARE ENTITLED TO ANYTHING.

Who paid for all your stuff?

Does everything you have come from your own effort? Or did someone else pay the cost of what you now enjoy?

I think about the ANZACS – the young naive soldiers who marched into Gallipoli and into the Fromme in WWI with hardly any idea of the horror of war.

They paid the ultimate price. Jesus spoke of them when He said “Greater love has no man than this: that he would lay down his life for his friends”

Our own ANZACS have paid a huge price so that Australia would be a free and democratic nation with the most envied lifestyle and liberties of any nation.

Do you take it for granted? Or will you work hard and like the ANZACS pay a cost so that others may live.