Building on the Foundation

  When God delivered the Israelites from bondage in Egypt, He didn’t take them straight to the Promised Land. They weren’t ready. So first He brought them through the wilderness to Mt. Sinai and gave them His laws. He charged them, saying, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5-6). There at Mt. Sinai, God and Israel entered into a covenant. The Israelites said, “All that the LORD has said we will do, and be obedient” (Ex. 24:7). But Israel still wasn’t yet ready to enter the Promised Land. God knew His people needed more preparation, more instruction, and more testing to see if they truly would walk in His ways and obey His commandments. The journey to the Promised Land wasn’t over; it was just beginning. Though the Israelite s ’ subsequent rebellions would prolong the journey many years lo...

  Today, I could tell you an inspirational story, but we’ve all heard those stories. There are thousands of inspirational stories. Stories of skydivers and mountain climbers who broke nearly every bone in their bodies and who crawled or dragged themselves for miles until being rescued. Stories of outdoorsmen, hunters, and hikers who survived horrific falls and maulings by wild animals. Stories of POWs who endured years of torture, beatings, and starvation. You’ve all heard them, or stories like them. You’ve all heard stories of people who refused to give up in the face of impossible odds. But today, it’s not time for another story. It’s time to stop and evaluate where we are in life, where we want to be, and how badly we want to get there. We live in a society of quitters. People quit whenever life gets hard, and not only when it gets hard, but even when it gets slightly inconvenient. People quit on their jobs, on their marriages, and on God. People discover that obeying God isn’t ...

For longer than anyone can remember, the Tarahumara (pronounced Tara-mara) Indians in northwestern Mexico have been running. Not just any running, either — 200- and 300-mile foot races without stopping, taking 40, 50, or more hours to finish! They run in sandals or bare feet, taking with them only a small bag of beans or corn for food. The longest recorded run by a Tarahumara was 435 miles in just over 48 hours! That’s more than 16.5 marathons in two days. Running is life for the Tarahumara. They start running almost from the time they can walk, and don’t stop even in old age. Men and women in their 70s and 80s run, too. Even their method of hunting revolves around running: they hunt deer and turkeys simply by chasing them to exhaustion, and even capture wild horses the same way. There are several lessons we can learn from the Tarahumara. For those called by God, the race that we run is long — an entire lifetime! The Apostle Paul wrote, “Do you not know that those who run in a race all...