***Listen To Audio Version: The Weight and The Sin Audio 608
Today’s Devotional Scripture: Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us. - Hebrews 12:1 KJV
The Message For Today (August 4, 2028):
***Listen To Audio Version: The Weight and The Sin Audio 608
Every Weight Is Not a Sin, But It Still Must Be Laid Aside
On Saturday night, I had a dream that I actually remembered when I woke up on Sunday morning. This is significant and an actual answered prayer, because before I went to sleep on Saturday night, I did my first livestream for the month of August covering the first day of a 30-day series on childlike speech (“Death and life are in the power of the tongue: And they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” Proverbs 18:21, KJV).
At the very end of that livestream, unscripted, I prayed that the Lord would give us prophetic dreams when we went to sleep, and that we would actually remember them upon waking, because for months I have had countless dreams where the Lord was trying to tell me something, but I didn’t remember it 30 seconds after I woke up.
Back to the dream. I dreamt that I was in a store with my mother and my daughter, and I had picked up an enormous amount of things to purchase: a lot of clothes that were on sale. Some I specifically remember were $0.49. I was so happy about my haul, but for some reason, I asked the cashiers to hold my stuff while I went to shop some more in a different part of the store.
As I continued walking around the store, I came to a part that looked just like a grocery store. While searching the aisles, I found an amazing dinosaur toy that I wanted for my twin boys who, in real life, might as well be dinosaurs because of their love for them. I was so excited when I found a second, identical toy on another aisle, which happened to be the last one they had.
When I went back to the original counter I had been at to check out, Ms. Rachel was now my cashier. As she was scanning tags, she whispered, “They are firing me,” in a way that we knew what “they” were doing was wrong. My mother then said if that’s the case, we shouldn’t spend our money there, and as she was about to walk out of the store, I felt such sorrow about leaving my “good” haul behind, especially the 2 dinosaur toys. I did not want to leave without making the purchase, because my finds were so cheap and such a good deal. After all, who wants to walk away from a bargain?
But I begrudgingly left it and walked out of the store.
Are you like me in this season where you need to put some things down? Outright leave some things, or delegate others, because all the heavy weights you are carrying are preventing you from running the race that is set before you?
The heavy weights are not bad.
They are not sin. However, they require something that you cannot sustain and run at the same time. Imagine running a marathon with a weighted vest. That is a very different race.
For me, this is showing up in my motherhood. I have been grieved lately about who I become when I am running on empty after carrying so many heavy weights from day to day. That version of me is not very patient with my children at the end of a long day. I do not want to be a mother that my children need therapy for when they grow up. I do not want them to get the depleted version of me because I’m carrying too much weight.
Paul says lay aside every weight, AND the sin.
The weight and the sin are listed separately because they are not the same. The word translated weight in that verse is a runner’s word. It means bulk, mass, anything that adds drag. For example: extra clothing or a full stomach. There is nothing sinful about those extra items, but you will almost certainly lose the race if you try to run with a full stomach.
Many in the Body of Christ are not running as freely as we could, not because we are in rebellion, but because we are carrying heavy weights. Good things. Things we found on sale (like in my dream). Opportunities that cost us so little to pick up that we cannot fathom laying them aside, which is why they are so hard to release. I’m reminded of so many movies where a collector of art brags on how they “picked up this little piece” for the deal of the century.
Nobody agonizes over quitting something expensive and miserable. We agonize over the bargains we lose: “It was such a good deal;” “It’s barely any trouble;” “It’s only forty-nine cents;” “I’ve been doing this for so long it’s second nature.”
Even a forty-nine-cent item, added to a full cart, is a load you cannot run with.
Hebrews 12:1 shows us that He is not asking us to repent of carrying the heavy weights. He is asking us to set it down. There is a difference, and the enemy would love for you to confuse the two, because if you believe every weight is a sin, you will spend your time repenting instead of unloading, and the cart will still be full in the morning.
What is in your cart that isn’t wrong, but too heavy?
Closing Devotional Prayer
Let us pray:
Father, I thank You that You are loving enough to show me the difference between what is sin and what is simply too heavy for me to carry and run at the same time. Forgive me for carrying what You never wanted me to hold, and for calling it faithfulness or service to You. Give me the courage to leave a cart full of good and cheap items in the aisle and walk out with my hands free so that I can run the race that YOU have set before me.
Where I have been grieved over my own weakness, remind me that conviction is Your kindness and condemnation is not of You, for there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Help me run this race with patience. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Written by Marshay Iwu - Our Tuesday writer.
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