May 7th, 2024
Even if you don’t watch horseracing, you’ve likely heard of the Kentucky Derby. It’s the biggest event in the sport and this week marked its 150th run. As I watched the race last weekend, I was thinking about the power of obedience! Horseback riding is such a unique sport because it’s based on relationship and communication between man and animal. Relationship is the only way a rider can get a creature ten times their size to obey! However, that relationship can be built on trust or fear. In racing especially, there are horses that love to run and horses that are forced to run. It’s hard for a spectator to tell the difference, but a rider and trainer know a horse that loves what they’re doing.
Secretariat, one of the greatest racehorses of all time, won the Kentucky Derby (and the Triple Crown) over fifty years ago, and his track record has yet to be touched. People still speculate about what set him apart and he’s truly a legend decades after his death. He was called “the horse built by God” and his trainers and riders all spoke reverently of his love for running. His riders were in awe of his speed and power, but even more so of his intelligence and passion. Secretariat didn’t have to be motivated or pushed to the finish line. He loved to run and that wasn’t something any jockey could have put in him.
You may be wondering why I’m talking about this, but there are truths here that are so powerful when it comes to running our race with the Lord. I recently read a quote about horsemanship that said:
“Trust is when a horse does something because it believes it’s a good idea. Obedience is when a horse does something because it believes not doing it is a bad idea. There’s a big difference between trust and obedience.”
In our journey with the Lord, there is a powerful connection between trust and obedience. Obedience is the natural response to trust. You can’t trust God and not obey Him. However, it’s possible to obey without trust, but that will always result in religious bondage.
Obedience should always be birthed in love and trust!
Psalm 32:8-9 says,
“I (the Lord) will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.”
Just as a horse can be controlled with pain or fear, the enemy uses pain and fear as a means of control, but those are never the tools of our Heavenly Father. God will never force us to obey in our relationship with Him!
Obedience to God brings freedom when it’s born out of love. Only His love casts out fear and brings us to the place that we will run with Him, just for the love of running.
1 John 4:16-18 says,
”So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.“
Obedience is easy when we know the love of God and trust Him fully. Truth destroys the power of lies and you may be just one small truth away from your breakthrough!
I want to share some foundational truths from God’s Word that will help keep our hearts focused on Him and check our trust, so we can run in freedom:
1. God is love. (1 John 4:8)
2. God is completely, unchangeably, good. (James 1:17)
3. You are significant to Him. (Matthew 10:30-31)
4. God has only good plans for you. (Jeremiah 29:11)
5. He desires to save, heal, and deliver. You can trust that anything He commands is for your good and His glory. (John 10:10)
As you run your race this week, I encourage you to ask yourself why you’re running. Do you run out of love for God, for the joy of the race, or are you running in fear of what’s behind you? One will motivate and strengthen you, while the other will exhaust you. Just as racehorses wear blinders to block the crowds and competition from their vision, so we must keep our eyes looking only forward, at Jesus, whose eyes burn with love for us. We will run in strength when we run with our eyes on the King!
As it says in Hebrews 12:1-2,
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
When we run this way, we will not fail to reach the finish line! As it says in Isaiah 40:30-31,
“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
Secretariat, one of the greatest racehorses of all time, won the Kentucky Derby (and the Triple Crown) over fifty years ago, and his track record has yet to be touched. People still speculate about what set him apart and he’s truly a legend decades after his death. He was called “the horse built by God” and his trainers and riders all spoke reverently of his love for running. His riders were in awe of his speed and power, but even more so of his intelligence and passion. Secretariat didn’t have to be motivated or pushed to the finish line. He loved to run and that wasn’t something any jockey could have put in him.
You may be wondering why I’m talking about this, but there are truths here that are so powerful when it comes to running our race with the Lord. I recently read a quote about horsemanship that said:
“Trust is when a horse does something because it believes it’s a good idea. Obedience is when a horse does something because it believes not doing it is a bad idea. There’s a big difference between trust and obedience.”
In our journey with the Lord, there is a powerful connection between trust and obedience. Obedience is the natural response to trust. You can’t trust God and not obey Him. However, it’s possible to obey without trust, but that will always result in religious bondage.
Obedience should always be birthed in love and trust!
Psalm 32:8-9 says,
“I (the Lord) will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.”
Just as a horse can be controlled with pain or fear, the enemy uses pain and fear as a means of control, but those are never the tools of our Heavenly Father. God will never force us to obey in our relationship with Him!
Obedience to God brings freedom when it’s born out of love. Only His love casts out fear and brings us to the place that we will run with Him, just for the love of running.
1 John 4:16-18 says,
”So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.“
Obedience is easy when we know the love of God and trust Him fully. Truth destroys the power of lies and you may be just one small truth away from your breakthrough!
I want to share some foundational truths from God’s Word that will help keep our hearts focused on Him and check our trust, so we can run in freedom:
1. God is love. (1 John 4:8)
2. God is completely, unchangeably, good. (James 1:17)
3. You are significant to Him. (Matthew 10:30-31)
4. God has only good plans for you. (Jeremiah 29:11)
5. He desires to save, heal, and deliver. You can trust that anything He commands is for your good and His glory. (John 10:10)
As you run your race this week, I encourage you to ask yourself why you’re running. Do you run out of love for God, for the joy of the race, or are you running in fear of what’s behind you? One will motivate and strengthen you, while the other will exhaust you. Just as racehorses wear blinders to block the crowds and competition from their vision, so we must keep our eyes looking only forward, at Jesus, whose eyes burn with love for us. We will run in strength when we run with our eyes on the King!
As it says in Hebrews 12:1-2,
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”
When we run this way, we will not fail to reach the finish line! As it says in Isaiah 40:30-31,
“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
No Comments