Extra Weights

        When you go walking these days, you often see people walking around with little weights in their hands.  Personally, I have enough weight to carry around so I don't add any more.  They use the weights to exercise their arms while they walk.  You can even get little weights that attach to your ankles.  Usually, I have enough weight to carry around of my own without going and purchasing more to carry.  When baseball batters get ready to swing, you can often see them swinging a bat around with a large ring on it.  This added weight gets them used to a heavier bat.  Then, when they get to the plate, they take the weight off and the bat feels temporarily lighter.  It is always important to take the weight off when you get ready to bat or when you get ready to race.   Hebrews 12:1-2 says, "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."  
       The writer of Hebrews makes it clear that we are also to strip off the extra weight that we have if we are going to do well in the race that we are in.  The writer has likened this life to the race and our sin as the extra weights.  Obviously, we need to take the extra weights off so we, too, can be successful.  The extra weight just slows us down and we won't perform well while carrying it.  The extra weights, which are our sins, can be those things that plague us through our Christian life.  It might be that unforgiving spirit that you have against a fellow believer or it might be your lack of patience with your present work situation or your family or even someone in church.  It can also be that envious attitude that you have towards a person who has something that you would really like to have.  The list can go on and on but we all know what little weights are always keeping us from running the race the way we should.  So, do as the writer of Hebrews has said.  "...let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us..."  See you fast you can run the race today.  Praise God for His working in our lives.