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. (ESV)
Many current events, related and unrelated, call out to us trying to get us to fix out attention upon them. Disease, wars, politics, violent crime, the mental health and drug overdose crisis, and on and on. Strong personalities assert that we should follow them and in a number of cases, they try to get us to comply with the way they have decided we should think and live. Or get cancelled.
There is only one person we should fix our eyes upon. And He is Jesus, the Son of God, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The person about whom the verses above are written. The cloud of witnesses in verse 1 all bear official testimony to Jesus. And He has gone before us, finished the race, and is sitting at the right hand of God the Father.
All distractions weigh us down, sometimes tempting us to sin, and they want us to quit our own individual races. And any other person who seeks for us to follow him or her must be carefully evaluated, and looked upon with a discerning eye.
So all of this means our focus must be upon Jesus. And for me personally, I have to do this in practical ways. For example, I have set personal musical skill development goals for the year. For me to have any chance of achieving these goals, on a day by day basis I must pray, asking Jesus to make me able to advance by and through practicing. To be successful, I must seek His action of enablement in my life. I also ask Him for new ideas and methods to creatively train. Day in and day out. The same approach is made for other pursuits, goals, and needs.
If I don’t keep the dependency upon Jesus, in heart and mind, then I fail. I lived a time of life in my youth not depending on Jesus and not staying close to Him in my thinking, and aim and intent. And the results were a mixed bag. And this reality is pretty much the same for others, whether acknowledged or not. The Bible has accounts of people who would depend on God, and then after success, they would depend on themselves. And their lives didn’t go well when they depended on their own abilities and insights.
But the Bible and church history is full of examples of people who did stay focused on Jesus, and they did not waver. And they helped change the world. In church history there were: Luther. Whitfield. Wesley. Moody. Judson. Carey. Livingstone. Graham. And on and on. These individuals, even though sinners like all of the rest of us, did not get distracted, nor did they quit their races.