The Run: 20 miler. What can I say? Everything went well. 60 degrees, bright beautiful moon and heavenlies at 4:30 am. Even Jupiter, the king of planets was out illuminating our path. Even kicked it up a notch for the last 2 miles.
The Reason: I am almost finished reading a biography on my Kindle about the church father Athanasius. From the introduction by C.S Lewis in Athanasius' treatise entitled, On the Incarnation:
"Athanasius stood contra mundum ("against the world") in defense of the biblical doctrine of Christ. He opposed Arius when it seemed all the world would follow Arius's heresy. Athanasius's work remains even today one of the definitive statements of orthodox Trinitarianism."
Basically, Arius said that Jesus was not God. He said it so often and so convincingly that eventually nearly everyone believed it. Athanasius stood his ground and was exiled for it. He was able to stand firm in part because of he knew and trusted in the Word of God. Thanks to Athanasius, this heresy was eventually stamped out except for the Jehovah's Witnesses who are the modern day descendant of Arianism.
I say all of this just to say that we are called to be "in this world but not of this world." Just as Athanasius stood "Contra Mundum" and held firm to orthodoxy and the Truths laid out in Holy Writ, we as christians are called to do the same. Paul wrote to the church at Rome, "be therefore not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." The way that our fallen, sinful, depraved minds are renewed is by steeping them in God's Word.
In short, the Bible-Read it, Know it, Love it and Live it.
I didn't know this man existed. Why is that? Because of men like Athanasius our salvation through the blood of Jesus Christ is still possible. What would have happened if he hadn't stood in the gap for us - would we be able to call ourselves children of God? No, and if Arius had gotten his way, we probably would have scorned the title.
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