Verse 24 says, “Do you not know that those who run on a racecourse all run, but one receives the prize? Run in this way, that you may lay hold.” Paul was like an Olympic athlete running in a race. He used the running on a racecourse to illustrate how he preached. He did not preach in a loose way but in an Olympic way, a very strict way. A person who competes in the Olympics must train and exercise in a very strict way. We must be the same in the gospel.
Paul said that we should run in such a way that we may receive the prize. We should remember that there is a reward as an incentive to our preaching. But we cannot preach the gospel loosely. We must endeavor to run in a strict way. If we consider this and compare ourselves to Paul, we have to admit that we are greatly lacking. We should not take the practice of the vital groups for the sake of the gospel in a light and loose way. If we are loose, there is no possibility for us to gain anything. The Lord has been speaking to us week after week and year after year. But many of us have not received the full benefit of His speaking. This is due to our looseness.
We should not do anything in a loose way. If we arrange the chairs, we should arrange them strictly. If we are ushering, we should oversee the place to which we are ushering people. We should make sure that everything is in order and is clean, neat, and attractive. We should also learn to eat our meals in a strict way. When we leave our table, we should place the chair under the table in its proper position. Our bedrooms, our work place, and everything related to us should be in a proper order. If we are loose and messy persons, we will preach the gospel in the same way. We may talk about preaching the gospel, but how do we preach? We may preach in a loose way without any endeavoring or desperation.
In 1953 I conducted a training in Taipei with one hundred twenty saints. This was the first training I had after coming out of mainland China. The first thing I touched in that training was the character of the trainees. I put out thirty items of a proper character which can make a person useful to the Lord (see the book entitled Character published by Living Stream Ministry). The first three items are genuineness, exactness, and strictness. To be genuine, exact, and strict is for running the Christian race to win the prize. A race on a racecourse has its regulations. We have to get ourselves exercised.
I have been under this kind of training and discipline for many years. If we do not exercise the proper discipline over ourselves, we can never be overcomers. The Lord Jesus was not a loose person. Once He fed five thousand people, not including the women and children, with just five loaves and two fish. If we had been there, we would have been excited. In our excitement we might have neglected all the leftovers. But the Lord Jesus told the disciples to gather all the leftovers (John 6:12). That shows the Lord’s strictness.
When He saw the five thousand, He told His disciples to have them sit down in groups of about fifty each (v. 10; Luke 9:14). Then He took the loaves and fish and fed them. To be seated is to be regulated. Without certain regulations, there would have been no way to feed the five thousand. All of them were very hungry and wanted to eat. If they rushed all at once to get the food, some people could have been trampled. When the Lord asked the disciples to have them sit down, this regulated them. When the disciples were going to distribute the food, they had a proper way with a good order. This shows that the Lord Jesus was very fine and detailed in His humanity.
We can also see the Lord’s fine humanity when He resurrected. When Peter entered the Lord’s tomb on the day of resurrection, he saw “the handkerchief which had been over His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded up in one place apart” (John 20:7). If we had been resurrected, we may have said, “Praise God! I am released! Hallelujah!” Then we would have thrown off our handkerchief and would have left everything in a mess in the tomb. But this is not what the Lord did. When the disciples came to His tomb, they saw the evidence that He had been resurrected. All the things left in the tomb were a testimony to the Lord’s resurrection. If these things had not been left there in a good order, it would have been difficult for Peter and John to believe (v. 8) that the Lord had not been taken away by someone but had risen by Himself. If the Lord had been taken away, nothing would have been left in a good order. This again shows us the Lord’s fine humanity. Our character needs to be transformed with this uplifted humanity. The Lord was almighty and infinite, but He never became loose. He was very fine and detailed, even in taking care of small things. We need to run the Christian racecourse in this way.
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