A Picture of Christ and Us

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I am still listening to Max Lucado’s 3:16: The Numbers Of Hope. I found a great example. He discusses the racing team of Dick and Rick Hoyt, a team that has an impressive competition history.

I’ll let Max tell the story:

Team Hoyt consists of a father-son squad: Dick and Rick. They race. They race a lot. Sixty-four marathons. Two hundred ans six triathlons. Six triathlons at Ironman distance…Since 1975, they’ve crossed nearly a thousand finish lines…

Team Hoyt loves races. But only half of team Hoyt can run. Dick, the dad, can. But Rick’s legs don’t work, nor does his speech. At his birth in 1962, the umbilical cord
wrapped around his neck, starving oxygen from his brain, stealing coordination
from his body…

But Rick wanted to run. At age fifteen, he asked his dad if they could enter a five mile benefit race. Dick was not a runner, but he was a father, so he loaded his son in a three-wheeled wheelchair, and off they went. They haven’t stopped since…

We bring to the spiritual race what Rick Hoyt brings to the physical one. Our spiritual legs have no strength. Our morality has no muscle. Our good deeds cannot carry us across the finish line, but Christ can. “To the one who does no work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness” (Rom. 4:5 NASB)…

We bring what Rick brings. And God does what Dick does. He takes start-to-finish-line responsibility for his children. “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28).

(Lucado, Max, 3:16: The Numbers Of Hope, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007, p. 83-85.)

Have you seen yourself like this before? Have you come to the place where you know without a doubt that you can do nothing in and of yourself to earn or deserve fellowship with God? It’s a hard place to be. It just doesn’t feel right to an American, not being able to earn something through hard work. It’s anti-American-dream.

It was a hard pill for me to swallow. It took some time and some trial and error. It took some study time discovering God’s requirements for thought, speech, and behavior. It took some introspection to discover what my own heart was capable of.

I praise God that Christ has done for me what I could not do for myself.

Has Christ done that for you? Has He earned your eternal life? I don’t mean that in the abstract sense, I want to know if Christ did the work for you. Do you really trust Him?

There is no better time than today, no better moment than right now, to begin to trust Christ. It’s a place of rest from labor and a firm foundation for all of life’s storms.

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