"1Therefore, 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, 2 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."
Hebrews 12:1-2
The words that the Apostle uses in describing the 'race' are deeply instructive. It is not the length of the race that he has in mind, but the effort and discipline involved in it. The word in the original is one from which we get our English word 'agony', and it implies wrestling and battling. It is the discipline of the Christian life, the cost of discipleship that is at issue. Furthermore, the word translated 'set before us' is a very curious and graphic one; literally translated, it would be 'it is already there'. And the point is this - as soon as ever we engage to be the Lord's, and begin the Christian life, the agony, the wrestling, is already there, straightway. We find an impressive example of this in Romans 7:21, where Paul says, "I find then a law that, when I would do good, evil is present with me' - at my elbow! - and the battle is already there. It is probably in this light that we should try to understand the 'weights' and the 'sin that doth so easily beset', which latter phrase literally means "the easily clinging around us sin" - the picture being of the flowing, oriental robe which the athlete would certainly cast off so as to have unfettered freedom in running the race. Interpreters have been careful to distinguish between 'sins' and 'weights'. Many wrong things cling to a man's life and either hinder him from starting the race at all, or effectively hamper his running when he has begun. But there are also many things that are not wrong in themselves but become wrong because they are given too much place in the life and therefore hold a man back. In a race there are certain basic priorities. There must be no encumbrances. Something that may be good and even beneficial in itself may prove deadly to the athlete who has his eye on the prize. It must therefore be laid ruthlessly aside, at whatever cost!