It starts with you

[the boys at the Yuba-Sutter Fair this past summer]

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

You've probably seen it before in the cartoons or movies.  There is a race and someone in the race is not playing by the rules.  They do whatever they possibly can to slow the other contestant down and cause them to lose.  They don't play fair because all they care about is coming out on top.

I read a message from C.H. Spurgeon this morning.  It was delivered in June of 1858.  And what a fitting location!  The Grand Stand, Epsom Race-Course.  The message was entitled "The Heavenly Race".  It was based on 1 Corinthians 9:24.

In his message he talks about things that hinder us and even prevent us from truly running in the "race" in this life.  I wanted to share one of those things here because I think it is something that many of us are prone to do.  Maybe we don't do it habitually but every once in a while it may rear it's ugly head.

If we find that we are often very busy about focusing on the faults of others and not doing our own personal business with the Lord, we should be concerned.  If we find that as we sit listening to a message from God's Word we are hoping that so and so is listening, we should redirect our focus.  We would do well to consider ourselves whenever we consider the powerful, transforming Word of God.  We need it.  We, ourselves, need to hear it.  And heeding it will spur us on to greater rewards than the temporary satisfaction of trampling someone else underfoot.

Here is that quote from Spurgeon...

"There is also another thing that will prevent man's running the race. We have known people who stopped on their way to kick their fellows. Such things sometimes occur in a race. The horse, instead of speeding onwards to the mark, is of an angry disposition, and sets about kicking those that are running beside him—there is not much probability of his coming in first. 

'Now they that run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize.'

There is one however who never gets it, and that is the man who always attends to his fellow-creatures instead of himself. It is a mysterious thing that I never yet saw a man with a hoe on his shoulder, going to hoe his neighbour's garden, it is a rarity to see a farmer sending his team of horses to plough his neighbour's land; but it is a most singular thing that every day in the week I meet with persons who are attending to other people's character. If they go to the house of God and hear a trite thing said, they say at once "How suitable that was for Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Brown?" The thought never enters their head, how suitable it was to themselves. They lend their ears to everybody else, but they do not hear for themselves. When they get out of chapel, perhaps as they walk home, their first thought is, "Well, how can I find fault with my neighbors?" They think that putting other people down is going up themselves (there never was a greater mistake); that by picking holes in their neighbour's coat they mend their own They have so few virtues of their own that they do not like anybody else to have any therefore they do the best they can to despoil everything good in their neighbor; and it there be a little fault, they will look at it through a magnifying glass, but they will turn the glass the other way when they look at their own sins. 

Their own faults become exceedingly small while those of others become magnificently great. 

Now this is a fault not only among professing religious men, but among those who are not religious. We are all so prone to find fault with other people instead of attending to our own home affairs. We attend to the vineyards of others, but our own vineyard we have not kept. Ask a worldly man why he is not religious, and he tells you "Because so-and-so makes a profession of religion and is not consistent." Pray is that any business of yours? To your own Master you must stand or fall, and so must he; God is their judge, and not you. Suppose there are a great many inconsistent Christians—and we are compelled to acknowledge that there are—so much the more reason why you should be a good one. Suppose there are a great many who deceive others; so much the more reason you should set the world an example of what a genuine Christian is. "Ah! but," you say, "I am afraid there are very few." Then why don't you make one? But after all, is that your business? Must not every man bear his own burden? 

You will not be judged for other men's sins, you will not be saved by their faith, you will not be condemned for their unbelief. 

Every man must stand in his own proper flesh and blood at the bar of God, to account for the works done in his own body, whether they have been good or whether they have been evil. 

It will be of little avail for you to say at the day of judgment, "O Lord, I was looking at my neighbors; O Lord, I was finding fault with the people in the village; I was correcting their follies." But thus saith the Lord: "Did I ever commission thee to be a judge or a divider over them? Why, if thou hadst so much time to spare, and so much critical judgment, didst thou not exercise it upon thyself? Why didst thou not examine thyself, so that thou mightest have been found ready and acceptable in the day of God?" These persons are not very likely to win the race, because they turn to kicking others."

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Spurgeon is right.  Those who don't know Christ (that used to be me) will elevate themselves by finding fault with others and considering themselves far better than certain people.  They will think they are good people because they don't do some detestable thing they see another doing.  The problem is that they have never truly seen themselves as God does.  His is the standard we should judge ourselves by.  The same thing goes for Christians.  Stop looking around you at all the things that others aren't getting right.  Focus first and foremost on your relationship and walk with God.  Is your life pleasing to him?  What do you need to change to honor him more?  It starts with you.