The most important word to remember for your spiritual journey may be a surprising one: no.

Your faith journey is a long one. Too many people start off well in their spiritual journey but putter out before the end. God wants you to go the distance.  

You’ve got a marathon ahead of you, and you can’t run that marathon with a barbell in your hands. People often quit their faith journey early because everything they’re carrying wears them out.

We need to de-clutter.

A cruise liner can get pretty fast in the middle of the water, but if it’s dragging a hundred lifeboats alongside it, it will slow it down. Plug a battery into one light bulb, and it’ll go a long way. Plug it into 15, and it drains much more quickly. Plug it into 100, and it’ll drain even more quickly.

That’s what happens to us when we try to do too much. Sometimes doing good keeps us from doing the best.

Hebrews 12:1 says, “Let us strip off every weight that slows us down” (NLT). 

Weights aren’t bad; they’re not sinful. They’re just unnecessary. What is a weight in your life? It could be a job, a relationship, or a hobby. It’s something that slows you down from what God wants from your life. And it’s not worth it.

It’s time for you to “strip off every weight” that’s slowing you down.