When he talks about the running the race, he said: you run - everyone runs, but you so run to ‘obtain’. In the Book of Hebrews, he talks also about running the race, and in this case he talks about weights, and things that hold us back.
Hebrews 12:1-2 – “Therefore, since we're surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us cast aside every weight, and the sin that so easily ensnares us; let us run with endurance the race set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”.
Firstly, you notice he exhorts us to “to run the race with endurance”. There's an endurance needed, and there are weights and things that hinder us. We need to realise they're there and address them. Then he tells us: “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that so easily ensnares us”. What is the sin that ensnares us? That word ‘ensnare’ means: to stand around you, surround you, distract you. What is the sin that surrounds us, and constantly seeks to distract us? It's most likely the sin of unbelief - the loss of confidence and faith in God, because we're going through hardship, or disappointments, or difficulties. It could also apply to a particular sin, or a stronghold, that you struggle with. He's saying then: for each person, what is the sin that most easily taps into our life? Probably unbelief, where we stop believing and trusting God - that His word's reliable, that He'll see us through, and so on. There are often other things that snare us as well. I think everyone's got their struggles that they have, their own unique kind of things to get over.
Secondly, he says: not just the sin that snares us, but also every weight. A weight is something that hinders you or burdens you. In the Roman races, they would take off all their clothes - they'd run naked, so that they had nothing to hold them back. If you want to be a winner, you've got to make sure nothing holds you back; there's no hinderances, no burdens - we're to cast them off. What are some of the weights? You could probably think of a few yourselves, but here's a few just to think about...
Unresolved issues are a weight. People who are carrying offences, bitterness, judgements, issues of the heart, unresolved grief... all those things are weights. That's where the ministry of healing and deliverance is so needed - it's to help you let go of the weights (apart from the issue of transformation). Abuse, betrayal, addictions… all of those things hold you back. So you may run, but you always can't give your best, because you've got something holding you back. Ungodly heart beliefs can be another thing - where you just believe lies. You believe that you're not good enough, you'll never make it, that you can never do anything right. There are many lies in the heart, that act as a weight to success.
Ungodly relationships can hold us back. God gives us a relationship, to accelerate us towards our destiny. The devil brings them in, to bring us back. I can remember at one stage we had a whole group of women, probably in their 40s, 50s, that we won to the Lord, and not one of them had had a man in their life for years. Within six months, all of them had gone off with some guy - and all of them left the Lord, left the church, left everything. I learnt that the devil brings people into your life, to take you off course; so the person who sets their mind to serve God, sets their mind on the course, going to fulfil it faithfully, then often the devil will add in people around that are a burden - so you need to just recognise that.
Any relationship that is consuming your time and energy, and is unproductive, probably is a hinderance. It could be ones that are ungodly, that are abusive, or have no boundaries. Frequently, when it comes to church, you get people that are like vampires - they're just draining your energy, draining your life. There's no response to your wisdom, or counsel, or direction - they just drain life, and they don't go anywhere; so those ones, you've got to boundary them quite strongly.
There can be other kinds of relationships - putting someone on a pedestal and making too much of them. That's a most common one in churches, where there's an idolatry around the minister, and that then becomes a burden, because then all our life is around that person, rather than being centred on Christ. These are issues that come up.