Running with Excellence

Several months ago I was at the gym stretching before a run when I noticed something:

Some runners run with excellence and others don’t.

I laughed to myself as some people climbed upon the treadmill, without stretching, dressed very stylishly with new shoes on, focusing on everyone around them, chatting and catching up, only to stop running within a few minutes. While others came in with worn shoes to stretch their muscles, do core exercises, and focus on preparation, only to be seen again an hour or two later after completing what they showed up for in the first place.

So I thought, this is the difference between running the Christian race with excellence verses not running in excellence.

Training is part of the race; in-fact the race is simply a byproduct of your training. How are you training?

If we are going to run lets run with excellence, and this will require core training! Runners do core exercises to strengthen the internal muscles that give you better posture and overall endurance to run a successful race.

One way to train our spiritual core is to be intentional in our thinking.

Philippians 4:8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.

Successful runners work on the things that no one sees (your core) so that they can win the race that everyone will see!

If we allow our spiritual core to be weak, if we think on lies, things that are impure and immoral, it will affect the kind of race we run.

Remember all runners run, but how are you running? Lets run with excellence!