“Do you not know that all the runners in a stadium compete, but only one receives the prize? So run to win. Each competitor must exercise self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run uncertainly or box like one who hits only air. Instead I subdue my body and make it my slave, so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
In these verses Paul compares the Christian with an athlete in competition. He talks about our discipline, our effort, and our integrity. These are good verses for us to keep in mind because today our opponents are many. Besides battling against our own flesh and the principalities and powers, we battle against a world that has turned right upside down and is changing the rules of morality to suit a disintegrating world.
Christianity is a faith of common sense. As we stray further and further from Christian principles we also leave common sense further and further behind. I find it amazing that groups that will close entire sections of a forest down for the tiniest of creatures can support the continual killing of the tiniest of humans. Unfortunately, most Christian principles are recognized by everyone as Christian principles. Some are so against Christianity that they must oppose everything about Christianity to prove their dismissal of the faith. Consequently, they must reject many of the common sense principles that Christianity brings to this world. Much of the world is going along with this craziness, but every day you will hear people saying, “where is people’s common sense?” Sadly, it is disintegrating by the same proportions that people reject the Biblical world perspective
I read a story about an unusual happening in the 1990’s in an NCAA Division II national championship cross-country race in California. A runner named Mike Delvaco and 127 of the states best runners were competing on 10,000 meter course to see “who would win the prize.” About three miles into the race, Delvaco was somewhere in the middle of the pack, when he realized that the runners had made a wrong turn. So he yelled out, “You’re going the wrong way,” but they didn’t listen. Only 4 others followed Mike when he turned in the right direction…and suddenly, he found himself in the lead. He must have had some doubt when the field dropped from 128 to 5, but he stayed on course.
However, that lasted only about a mile. Mike and the runners who followed him were
soon reunited with the larger pack who, having gone the wrong way, actually shaved about a half a mile off the course. The shortcut of the many put them ahead of the small band of runners that took the correct path. This was bad enough for Mike, but the final blow came when, because so many of the runners had gone the wrong way, the officials changed the official course route to accommodate their error. So when Mike Delcavo finally 
crossed the finish line, he was number 103 overall. His right action was ignored and because so many went the wrong way they were rewarded with a shorter race. At the end of the race, one of Delcavo’s competitors “thought it was funny that he went the right way.”
Isn’t that a telling statement? In our mixed up world, when so many are wrong, wrong becomes right. Instead of the world keeping a standard of acceptable behavior, it changes what acceptable behavior is. But although the world changes “the course” to accommodate itself, God does not. He know the course; He made the course; and He expects us to run the course as marked. Numbers do not influence God. No matter how many go astray, he does not accept the majority as a sign of rightness. In Noah’s day God did not change his plan for the sake of the majority.
It takes courage and conviction to follow wholeheartedly after God instead of the rest of the world. Sometimes it can get lonely running alone, and we may be wondering where the others are going. Sometimes we will be heckled by the crowd while we are going the right way, maybe even laughed at by others in the race. And ultimately, the “race officials” may reward others for bad turns. But we must remain on God’s course. We must run with discipline, doing our best, staying on course, and when the race is over and we have finished the course, may He who is the true judge say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
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