Table of Contents
Austin-Sparks Let us Run is a single chapter work on the Christian life. His perspective is from “running the Christian life” like a race, and parallel aspects of both.
Let Us Run
by Theodore Austin-Sparks
“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:3).
“Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? Even so run, that ye may attain” (1 Corinthians 9:24).
“Ye were running well; who did hinder you. . .?” (Galatians 5:7).
“Let us run”. It is not so much the running or the race that is in view but the goal, the prize. What is the objective of our running? Ideas about this vary greatly, and much evangelism limits it to the fact of being forgiven and going to heaven. When, however, we come to the New Testament, which is our final authority on the matter, we find that although blessings and heaven and glory are included, the real objective is a Person.
The prize turns out to be a person, and that person, the Lord Jesus Christ. At this point in the letter to the Hebrews we are faced with a summing up and an exhortation, but it is clear that we must go back to the beginning of this marvellous document if we are to appreciate the force of its appeal.
The beginning of this epistle gives us one of the two or three classical presentations of the person of the Lord Jesus. I feel sure that if Paul did not actually write it, the writer was one of Paul’s school, notably so in his apprehension of the matchless greatness of Christ. The first five verses provide us with a superlatively beautiful presentation of God’s Son. It is to this Son – Jesus – that we are to look as we run.
He is the goal: He is the prize. The letter has as its supreme object the setting forth of Divine fullness and finality in God’s Son, presented to faith for faith’s apprehension and appropriation. Fullness in Christ – the gathering up of all into Him.
Finality in Christ – the completion and realisation of all in Him. It goes on to consider in greater detail what He is and what He has done, His manifold capacity and ministry as God’s Son, turning then to an exhortation that we should keep this well in view and pursue our race with fullness and finality in Christ as our objective. Our lifetime will not be sufficient for us to attain to this: eternity will be required for us to discover what fullness really is.
If the goal and prize is Christ then the race will resolve itself into overcoming everything that is not Christ. The Christian life is a course, and a very strenuous course, calling for our utmost concentration, consecration and abandon. After all, progress can never be made unless there is something to work against, and strange as it may seem, friction seems almost essential to progress.
One cannot run on ice, and one can only make slow and unsatisfactory progress on deep sand. There must be something against which one can press and push, something that provides resistance and which has to be resisted and overcome. So our race is a matter of overcoming, and supremely of overcoming the natural by the spiritual. Our three texts will give us three areas in which such an overcoming is called for in the Christian life. We find three contrasts.
(1) Natural Intellect or the Mind of the Spirit.
(continue reading in the module…)
More Works on the Christian Life
- Adams – Overcoming Evil with Good
- Aitken – Temptation and Toil
- Albert – On Cleaving to God
- Alexander Thoughts on Religious Experience
- Alexander, J. – My Brothers Keeper
- Alleine, Joseph – Saint’s Pocket Book
- Anderson Christian Rumors
- Anderson Making Moral Choices
- Anderson Robert – The Silence of God Theodicy
- Anderson Spiritual Warfare
- Anderson, Sir Robert – The Way
- Anthology on Thanksgiving
- Arnold -The Christian Life: Its Course, Its Hindrances, and Its Helps.
- Arthur Timothy Shay – An American Story
- Arthur Timothy Shay – Extravagant Living
- Arthur, Timothy Shay – Nothing but Money!
- Arthur, Timothy Shay – Religion in Common Life
- Austin-Sparks Let us Run
- Austin-Sparks Spiritual Manhood
- Baxter, Richard – Mere Christianity
More Works by Austin-Sparks
- Austin-Sparks “According to Christ”
- Austin-Sparks A Candlestick All of Gold
- Austin-Sparks Anointing of the Holy Spirit
- Austin-Sparks Burning Fire of the Spirit
- Austin-Sparks Centrality and Universality of the Cross
- Austin-Sparks Christ our Life
- Austin-Sparks Crisis of Pentecost and & Significance of Holy Spirit’s Coming
- Austin-Sparks Dispensation of the Holy Spirit
- Austin-Sparks Divine Anointing
- Austin-Sparks God’s Reactions to Man’s Defections – Part 1, Part 2
- Austin-Sparks God’s Spiritual House
- Austin-Sparks God’s Supreme Interest in Man
- Austin-Sparks Goings of God
- Austin-Sparks He That is Spiritual
- Austin-Sparks His Great Love
- Austin-Sparks Holy Spirit
- Austin-Sparks Holy Spirit the Church and the Nations
- Austin-Sparks Horizoned by Christ
- Austin-Sparks Horizoned by Glory
- Austin-Sparks Horizoned by Resurrection
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Murray Andrew Master's Indwelling is a 13 chapter work on how the Christian's relationship with Our Lord Jesus Christ should be. Chapters are... Carnal Christians, The Self Life, Waiting on God, Entrance into Rest, the Kingdom First, Christ our Life, Christ's Humility our Salvation, Complete Surrender, Dead with Christ, Joy in the Holy Ghost, Triumph of Faith, Source of Power in Prayer, That God may be all in all.
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