See How They Run

Folks burn lots of calories when they run on treadmills. Lots of people run on treadmills to lose weight, get in better physical shape or just unwind after a long day doing whatever.

The only problem with running on treadmills is they don’t go anywhere.  We have a pastor at our church who’s a health nut. He came out of his exercise room all sweaty last week. He told me he rode 12 miles on his treadmill. I went into his exercise room and there was his treadmill. It hadn’t moved an inch.

Unless we know and understand our true identity in Christ we ride a treadmill. In fact, it’s our primary mode of transportation.

Our treadmill “Route” looks something like this:

We sin
We confess our sin
We ask God for forgiveness
We feel better . . .for a while
We try not to sin again
We sin
We confess our sin
We ask God for forgiveness
We feel better . . .for a while
We try not to sin again

Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Sound familiar?

Your treadmill exercise produces results. Problem is the results aren’t good.
Treadmill living produces fruit like inferiority, insecurity, jealousy, self-protection, control, tiredness, perfectionism et al.

A treadmill life feeds on lies from hell.

“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”  Ephesians 2:1-3

Treadmill living is our way of trying to achieve acceptance from God. Read on . . .

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead ^[f]in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” Ephesians 2:4-6

When we know and understand our true identity in Christ, we realize our true identity is based on receiving (not achieving) the free gift of love and acceptance from God.