Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,

Being surrounded can be overwhelming in good and bad ways. When I was in second grade, I was surrounded by kids on the playground who made fun of my small right hand. This was hard, embarrassing, and made life difficult in second grade. In high school, I was surrounded by teammates, who worked together with me to accomplish many individual goals that led to a team goal of scoring the most points. When we all worked together and did our jobs, the accomplishments were awesome. When I made a great play, I was surrounded by teammates congratulating me.

In this world, we can be surrounded by many different things, sometimes many challenging things. We may wonder, why are so many challenging things happening to me? But the writer of Hebrews reminds us that we are to look to the heavens for our hope. If we look up, we will find not only a God who is all powerful and can deliver us, but also thousands upon thousands of witnesses to the gospel of Jesus Christ, who have gone before us.

They have been through the struggles and challenges of life, and they remained faithful until the end. They are cheering us on in our faithfulness as well. When I think about how many people are cheering me on I think about the collection of Saints over the last 2000 years since Jesus was born. Then I add to that the faithful Jews who had followed the Lord before Jesus came, and when these are all added together, I would say it’s more like millions upon millions.

When I made a big play in football, I may have had a few hundred people cheering for me. I wonder what it sounds like in heaven to have millions upon millions of people cheering for me in my faith? It’s got to be pretty awesome!

In response to this, we are to re-double our efforts in a few areas: 1) to get rid of the sin that drags us down and holds us back in our relationship with God, and 2) to press on and run the race with perseverance. As followers of Jesus, we are part of his elite spiritual forces, and elite forces train.

What does my daily training regimen look like spiritually? How do I prepare to stay in the race long and run consistently, and sometimes hard?

Lord, thank you that you’ve put me together with the saints before and after me who are your children. Together we are the bride of Christ, the church. Help me to look past the daily, weekly, and annual challenges and into my future eternity with you for my hope.