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, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:1-2
The noted violinist Fritz Kreisler was a child prodigy, being accepted to Vienna Conservatory of Music when he was just seven, and going on to worldwide fame. Kreisler once told an interviewer, “Narrow is the road that leads to the life of a violinist. Hour after hour, day after day, and week after week, for years, I lived with my violin. There were so many things that I wanted to do that I had to leave undone; there were so many places I wanted to go that I had to miss if I was to master the violin. The road that I traveled was a narrow road and the way was hard.” When a lady met him after a concert and said, “I’d give anything in the world to play like you,” Kreisler responded, “That’s what it cost me.”
Kreisler’s point was not that he regretted the narrow road he had chosen, but that excellence in something worthwhile requires surrendering lesser things. The sacrifices were real, but so was the joy of what they produced.
Following Jesus also requires sacrifice, but every sacrifice He calls us to make is part of a far better pursuit. Hebrews describes the Christian life as a race, and no serious runner wants to be weighed down by anything that keeps him from finishing well. In the same way, we must be willing to lay aside not only sin, but even those things that may not be wrong in themselves yet hinder our walk with God. Jesus Himself showed us this pattern. Paul wrote, “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9). As we look unto Jesus, we find that surrender is not loss, but the path of joyful obedience to the Savior who gave everything for us.
