Finishing Strong - A tribute to Len Hanreck "the legend"

“I have finished my course.” 2 Timothy 4:7 For those of who know Len Hanreck, its his memorial service today, Thursday 28th October 2010 at 4pm. For me, he was truly someone who gave everything he could to life. In a sense I believe he can confidently say "I have finished my race" like the apostle Paul said. So looking through some of my devotional emails I get, I came accross this one below from "Word For Today". Enjoy........... The course God sets before us is seldom easy. Running it takes commitment. James MacDonald says: “I’ve lived long enough to know men and women whose lives were sold out to God a few years ago, but who’ve since walked off the track…gone AWOL…lost their longing for God. Fear of following in their footsteps haunts me…and it should you, too…The faithfulness of my walk with God depends on my willingness to stay in a relationship with Him. I never want to lose the grip His greatness has on my life and the privilege it is to…serve Him till the day I’m welcomed into His presence. That passion compels me. It keeps me honest and humble…the last thing I want to do is crawl across the finish line a defeated, derailed Christian, or worse—give up the race before my life’s over. I want to break that tape with arms high, my face to the sun.” Paul said, “I have…finished my course…Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown.” Notice, courage + endurance + faithfulness = reward. Photographer Jacob Riis said: “When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps 100 times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the 101st blow it will split in two, and I know it wasn’t the last blow that did it, but all the blows that have gone before.” God’s Word is “a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces” (Jer 23:29 NKJV). So, “[hold] fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ [you’ll] have reason to glory because [you] did not run in vain” (Php 2:16 NAS).