087 - Doing your best
tags: best, worst, better, try, trying, tried, trying, applying yourself, effort, heart, applied, win, winner, winning, won, lost, loser, losing, doing, do, doer, accomplish, accomplished, accomplishing, finished, finishing, finisher, finish line, race, racing, raced, racer, compete, Daily Ni
handout id: 4317
short name: 087 - Doing your best
nutshell: It's not about competing with other Christians, it's about doing your best for the Lord.
Wording of this Handout:
Doing Your Best
In a race, the usual winner is the one who comes first. In a boxing match, the winner is the one who punches the best. In a tug of war, the winning team is the one which pulls the hardest.
It is the same with every manmade competition. The prizes always go to the strongest, fastest, highest, longest, etc, etc.
But how does God see things?
God looks at the heart, so He sees things very differently. He looks for the person who does their best. But it doesn't matter whether someone wins or loses a race, because God isn't impressed by winners.
So how would a race go if we were testing just the hearts?
All the competitors would line up, the gun fires, and the runners spread out around the track. The winner, due to a natural ability and a great set of legs and lungs, casually lopes to the finish line and heads for the stand...but wait, what's this? The little girl, who came in 40 seconds after the race finished, puffing and blowing and red in the face...she is being called over to the stand. She receives first prize! Why? Because God saw that, out of all the runners, she was doing her best.
The Bible says, "Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust in Him to help you do it, and He will."
Psalm 37:5