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I am wrapping up my first full school year at Cedar Springs Public Schools. It has been a challenging journey—much more challenging than I could have anticipated before I started in this role. Together with my administrators and teammates we have put some new things in place that I hope will serve our staff and students well for years to come. It’s not perfect, but it’s better than it was. Now we get to watch to see what happens next.
There is another amazing and challenging journey I am on (and so are you). But this is a journey toward perfection.
Some amazing faith-filled people have already ran their race well and their lives are recorded for us in Hebrews 11. The writer tells us, “all these people were still living by faith when they died” (11:13). “These all were commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect” (vv. 38-39).
(See all of the Scriptures verses in this post by clicking here.)
Jesus is the one who makes this perfection accessible:
- Once made perfect, He became the Source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him (5:9)
- The Son, who has been made perfect forever (7:28)
- For by one sacrifice [Jesus] has made perfect forever those who are being made holy (10:14)
Even before our forerunners were on earth, the Lamb of God was already slain as the perfect sacrifice to make us perfectly holy in God’s sight. They ran their race by faith without seeing this reality fulfilled (11:13). Now they make up the “cloud of witnesses” (12:1) who are cheering us on in our race.
They were empowered by faith in their coming Messiah; we are empowered by our faith in the Messiah who has been revealed to us. Their race was as vital to our race, as our race is to theirs. Our race shows them how invaluable their race was.
It is a race toward the perfection for which Jesus paid such a steep price.
“You have come to Mount Zion…to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (12:22–23).
“Only together” (11:40) do we all get there. My race—the way I am living right now—is as important and indispensable as their race was. So I will keep my “eyes on Jesus, the Pioneer and Perfecter of [our] faith” (12:2) so that I can run and finish my race with perfection!
I hope you will run with me, with all the saints who have come before us, and with those saints who are still running alongside us today. Your race, run in the perfection of Jesus, matters!
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Craig T. Owens 