Mind your steps while running the marathon!

Brother Sidlai, now that we are back in the presence of the Lord, what is it that we can do so that we might not fall again?

There is nothing much to do, my friend. Just mind your steps along the way. Now that you are back in the house of God, you are serving God again as he gave you the strength to wake up again the time you fell. Praise and blessed be the name of the Almighty God for the big role that he has played in your life. Do not doubt yourself. Believe it, it is really you standing on that altar again preaching the good news. It is the real you praying and connecting the people with God again. Do not doubt that the Lord has restored your life.

Yes! Do not doubt that God has brought you back again, not that he was doing you a favour. He loves and trusts you. He believes that you have what it takes to lead the people of God. He saw that it was not your intention to fall, but you lacked the knowledge of how to mind your steps. That is why today he is giving you a chance again, because you admitted your sins and humbled yourself before him as the living God. As the book of 2 Corinthians 7 says:

“Therefore, having this promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

You have already done what the verse is saying, God has shown you the right way, and you have returned to him. Let me remind you of this again so that you can bear it in mind: it does not mean you have to relax because you are now born again. The devil is after you now because of the good decision you have taken. You are no longer the tail. You are the head. The devil is now targeting the heads and wants to cut them off. He is now after the strong ones, the doers of the word of God, the anointed ones, the ones trusted by God. You are amongst these. In this chapter we will focus more on how you can mind your steps, now that you are back on the journey of the Lord, so that the devil might not steal you or make you fall again.

The devil has no power. He is a crook, tricky and convincing in his bad ways. All in all, he can market his ways very well to those whose faith is not strong. Because of this, we have to mind our steps in this journey of serving the Lord. The devil now targets all those who tell themselves they will walk this journey until the end. Along the way, he places his demons to disturb those on a journey.

We used to see people run marathons. Those people ran long distances, in kilometres not metres. The marathon of God is totally different to the one of the world. In the world’s marathon you can see that along the way, next to the road, there are people providing the runners with refreshments, such as water, powerade and other things to keep them fresh and going. The same applies to God’s marathon. We also have refreshments, but the difference is that in God’s marathon we carry our refreshments from the start to the end of the marathon. There is nobody supplying us with refreshments along the way.

God supplies us when we start, then gives us precautions to conserve our refreshments, so that they might stay fresh and not get hot as we are running. So, brother Sidlai, what are these refreshments of God’s marathon? We only know of the refreshments provided in ordinary marathons. My brothers and sisters, the refreshments that God has given us are the Word, his blood and the testimonies that we have mentioned above.

The Word of God refreshes you when you read it. It gives you strength and guides you along the way so that you might finish the marathon. The Word of God keeps you moving forward and makes you stronger and more powerful. The blood of Jesus keeps you protected along the way from all the works of evil. The devil kills along the way and makes others fall, but he cannot do the same to you because of the mark or anointing of the blood of the lamb on your forehead. The testimonies keep the power of remembrance in you so that you might not forget where you come from with God. This will keep you running, though you feel defeated and want to give up. When you think about where God has picked you up you will trust and believe in him and keep on going until the end.

Why does God make us carry our refreshments with us while we are running the marathon? Tell me something: if you heard people saying they saw the devil being beaten and tied up, wouldn’t you go to see him and laugh at him? Yes, you would, because you hate him and he is your first enemy, because of the things he has done to you. So, the reason that we carry our refreshments with us while running the marathon is because God knows that if we hate the devil, the devil also hates us and he will use any chance he gets to destroy us. So, if we were receiving our refreshments along the way, do you not think the devil would go and mix himself amongst the people providing us with those refreshments?

Do you think you would finish the marathon when you have drunk from your enemy’s refreshments? Let me tell you this: the devil hates to see you running God’s marathon with the intentions of finishing it. He knows that once you have finished it you will make fun of him and humiliate him. Let us imagine that you are running a normal marathon where you will win money. Let us imagine that I am your enemy. I am hired to supply you along the way with refreshments. Remember that when I hate you that means I do not want to see you prosper. I want to see you dying with nothing.

Now, I am placed 100 metres away from the finishing line, and I see you coming and you are number one, you are going to win the race. You are about to get your last refreshment from me, your enemy. Do you think I will let you finish the race and win it? It cannot be, because my slogan is to see you suffer and die with nothing. I do not want to see you prosper, I do not want to see you win the race and have money. Rest assured that I will find a way to kill you. That is how it happens between us people of God and the devil. He does not want to see us prosper or win: he wants us to die with nothing.

So, if we have our refreshments with us, does that mean we will not meet the devil along the way? Remember what I mentioned earlier: if you are born-again it does not mean you can fold your arms and relax. The devil does not give up so easily. He will find some other plan to put you down. The same applies here: the fact that you have your refreshements with you does not give you the guarantee to be able to fold your arms and relax. You must keep on using your refreshments so that they might not expire, because when you do not read the Word of God and do not pray, the Word will leave you.

Once the Word leaves you, you can no longer defend yourself against the devil, because you will not have the power to finish the marathon. Remember that the devil is good at marketing his product: the work of darkness. If you are weak, if you do not read the Bible and do not pray, you might easily fall for this product. You will desire to taste it, and you will tell yourself that you only want to taste it once, but once you have tasted the devil this will be done for life.

The devil will try to convince you that you are walking a long way and that you are going to be walking for days, months and years. He will tell you that you need refreshments, that you need a break and that you look like you need a rest. As the Bible says, God created everything but on the sixth day he rested. Once the devil has convinced you to take a rest he is going to break your life into pieces and bury you alive. The devil’s ways seem good to the naked eye, but to the spiritual eye you can see the danger in his ways. The Bible says in the book of Proverb 14, verse 12:

“There is a way that seems to be right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” (NKJV)

When the devil presents these refreshments to you he tries his best to please you, to present his refreshments as better than those of God that you already have. He even makes them look tastier and wraps them up, so that they might look as good as a Christmas present, so that you may accept them. But inside those refreshments that look good to the naked eye there is death, poverty, diseases and a miserable life. Let me tell you this: when the devil wants to kill you, he appears in a very good manner, so that you might not suspect anything, and as a result you fall for him.

***