He Ran

As I was preparing for my Wednesday night message I came across something really great that I would like to share.
Genesis 18:1-2 says, "And the LORD appeared unto him (speaking of Abraham) in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lift up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground."
We find Abraham at the door of his tent in the heat of the day. Taking his afternoon break as was typical in that culture because of the extreme heats. As we continue through the chapter we see that Abraham serves these three men (one of them being the Lord). I cannot say that I am particularly impressed with Abraham's hospitality, after all, it was customary for people in those days to accommodate travelers. Not bringing them into his home and giving them a meal would have been considered very rude. So when we see Abraham giving these three a meal without being prompted it is really only because he was doing what he was supposed to do.
Here is what does impress me: He ran! I am a 24 year old man. You could say that I am in my prime. Life may never get better for me (at least in a physical sense). Despite all of that, I absolutely HATE RUNNING! Let's look at Abraham for a minute: Verse 11 says that Abraham was old AND well stricken in age. Basically, Abraham was not just old, he was very old! Also, because we see in verse one that Abraham was sitting in the door of his tent in the heat of the day, we can assume that he had already been working hard in that day up until that point. If anyone had an excuse to not run, it was him.
Think for a minute about some of the other approaches Abraham could have taken besides running. Abraham could have always ignored the three travelers. He could have always pulled an "Oh, I didn't see them!" Of course, Abraham would not have done that but Abraham could have easily just walked to the three travelers. Think about it, nobody would have blamed Abraham for slowly getting up and making his way over to those three at his own pace. It was a hot day, he had been working, he was old (very old). But Abraham ran.
Why do we run? I am not talking about soccer practice where the coach forces you to run. I am talking about when you run out of your own free will. What cause you to run? Let's quickly look at two reasons why I believe we run, and how that can apply to our spiritual lives:
1. We run because of excitement- Abraham showed his excitement to serve the three travelers by running. One time my best friend and I went to Kings Dominion. We got to the park a little before opening. What Kings Dominion does is that they allow early comers to stand in the main hub and wait for the attractions to open, that way as soon as they open up you don't have to worry about ticket lines you can just get to the ride you want to ride on. We really wanted to ride the Volcano Roller Coaster and we were determined to be the first ones on the ride. We stood right at the rope that blocked off the rest of the park and as soon as they lowered it we ran as fast as we could. We ended up being the first to ride the Volcano because we ran. We were excited about a ride, so we ran to get there. Let me ask you something: Do you serve the Lord with excitement? It seems like too often, as Christians, we find ourselves doing the "Christian thing" simply because we have to. We say to ourselves, "It's Sunday, I have to go to church," or "I guess I should do my devotions today." We treat our Christian life more like it is a routine and less like it is a blessing. The Psalmist says to serve the Lord with gladness! How is your service and your Christian life? Are you excited about the opportunity to serve God? Do you look forward to church? prayer? soul winning? Ask yourself this question, "Is God really pleased with my service, even though it is simply a routine to me?" I believe that the answer is an emphatic "NO!" God wants us to be excited, enthusiastic about our service for him.
2. We run because of urgency- Across our nation and even across the world many marathons are held every year. The marathon is actually in memory of a Greek messenger during the battle of Marathon. The Greeks had just defeated the Persians in the Battle of Marathon and the general commanded a messenger named Pheidippides to send the message of their victory to Athens as quickly as he could. The messenger ran the entire 26 miles, ran right into the assembly and proclaimed “We won”. As soon as he said that, he fell dead.
Some say it is history, some say it is legend, regardless, we can learn a less from that messenger. The general gave him a command, and he ran. He had urgency. Today we need to be urgent about our obedience. I do not know when Jesus is coming, but I do know that we are a day closer than we were yesterday. We need to obey with an urgency as if he was coming back tonight. We shouldn’t look at our Bible reading as a routine, we should view it as very important. We should be urgent about our prayer lives because it is important; we should be urgent about winning our friends for Christ because it is important; we should be urgent about church attendance because it is important. We should never sit at home on a Sunday morning and ask ourselves “I wonder if I should go to church today?” Yes you should go to church! It is important for you to go to church! There is an urgency for you to be in church. It is time we take our Christian lives and re-evaluate. We treat too many other things as if they are important and urgent. We need to ask ourselves tonight, “I wonder have I done my best for Jesus when he has done so much for me?” We need to work for the night is coming when man works no more.
We shouldn't simply obey God, we need to do so with Excitement and Urgency. How is your excitement and urgency today?