August 2005 – On His Wheel

The New Will Come
In a past Tour de France, Lance Armstrong is quoted as saying, “If there’s one thing I say to those who use me as an example, it’s that if you ever get a second chance at life, you’ve got to go all the way.” He did go all the way this year and won his seventh Tour de France. Lance said, after Stage 14 of the 2005 Tour, “You either fight back or quit.”

 

Watching this cancer survivor beat the odds and keep a positive attitude and win his seventh Tour held special meaning for me this year. During 2005 my step-mother died of cancer, and my father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer for the third time. Sadly our baby and our dog also died.  I needed to hear the words, “You either fight back or quit.”

 

In the first century A.D. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, suffered many hardships. He writes, in 1 Corinthians 4:11-13, “To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world.” He also wrote, in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.”

 

Paul suffered hardships so that people would come to know Christ.  Knowing Christ gives us a second chance at life.   For anyone who is in Christ is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Corinthians 5:17) Since Christ gives us a second chance at life, we’ve got to go all the way!

 

Comments

[innov8r]

This is a great reminder that faith in Jesus Christ is not all about focusing on Heaven as a destination. Real faith in a Real Savior is a divine lifeline. Live it up!