Day 24 – Trust the Coach ~ Julie Earl
Galatians 1:7-12
7 You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? 8 That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. 9 “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough.” 10 I am confident in the Lord that you will take no other view. The one who is throwing you into confusion, whoever that may be, will have to pay the penalty. 11 Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished. 12 As for those agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves!
Julie’s Nugget
Christianity wasn’t meant to be a stroll through life. It was meant to be a full-out, all-in, all-consuming race. In the passage above, people were cutting in on these believers’ races by convincing them to go back under the law rather than living in Jesus’ grace and forgiveness.
We aren’t as influenced by Jewish law as they were back then, but we still have people and things cutting in on our race as Christians. Picture yourself in your running clothes and shoes, and the track coach – the Holy Spirit – has given you a task. The task is to express God’s heart of love to the young man shopping beside you at the Sport’s store. God has a word of love and a word of knowledge about something in his past to show this man God is real and is interested in every detail of his life.
As soon as you have the thought from the Holy Spirit, your heart rate goes up and you begin to sweat. The devil and your flesh throw fear and doubt your way in order to cut in on you and stop you from obeying God and running the race. You have a choice. Will you take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and say yes to God’s prompting, or will you let thoughts of fear and doubt cause you to obey your flesh and the devil?
At that moment, you need to ignore the lies of your inadequacies and negative consequences, and remind yourself of the BIGNESS of God. You need to push those lies off your path, open your mouth and let God fill it! You are an ambassador and God does a great job protecting those who work for Him, so you have nothing to fear.
Dane and I have seen again and again when we say yes to the task God gives us, not only is the person blessed, but we are blessed! Even on the rare occasion someone gets mad, we know that God’s love will continue to work in their hearts long after we shared with them. We believe that many of those people will walk up to us in heaven and tell us that our conversation with them was a turning point for their hearts.
A Call to Action
The next time God prompts you to do or say something, picture yourself in your running clothes and make a choice to trust the Coach. Don’t let anyone or anything from the sidelines cut in on you and stop your race. You have a huge God living in you who wants to be big through you! Say yes and allow God to bless the world through you!
You are awesome,
Julie Earl
(All Scripture taken from the New International Version. Bold lettering mine.)