LifeLink Devotional

Tuesday, March 09, 2021

We traveled over four thousand miles in five days. We slept in the car. We navigated almost fifteen hundred miles of gravel roads through the mountains. Twice we almost slid off those roads and down the mountainside because of rain. But when we arrived in North Pole, Alaska, the joy of serving the Lord as summer missionary interns at a Christian radio station was more than we expected.

I learned a life lesson from that trip. The promise of what awaits us at the final destination is motivation to continue the journey and endure the hardships we may encounter along the way.

Jesus teaches that principle to His disciples in the upper room the night before His crucifixion. He has informed them that He was leaving them. He told them that they could not go with Him. He predicted that life would get tough. Yet He gave them all the motivation they needed to endure what was ahead by informing them of what was waiting for them at the end.

John 14:2-3 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

The Holy Spirit, in the book of Hebrews, teaches us the same principle of endurance based on being focused on the finish line.

Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

The finish line is glory. It is glorious. It is promised for those who believe. It motivates those who choose to fix their eyes on it. The joy of what Jesus has prepared far exceeds any hardship we experience on the journey.

The question is this: On what have you fixed your eyes and your heart?

Pastor John