Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus…” Hebrews 12:1-2

A lot can be unpacked from Hebrews 12:1-2. but I want to focus on the Greek word used for “throw off.” The author of Hebrews is using an athletic metaphor of a foot race. During biblical times, Roman athletes would strip off their clothing to run their foot race unencumbered. So Hebrews is encouraging us to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles as we run our race.

This Greek word is used in other places in the New Testament:

“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.”
Ephesians 4:22-25

“But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.”
Colossians 3:8-10

“Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you,which can save you. Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.”
James 1:21-22

“Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
1Peter 2:1-3

While each of these passages contains valuable truth to explore, I only want to make one observation about all of them, including Hebrews 12. Each exhortation to “put off” or “get rid of” or “throw off” sin is coupled with an exhortation to embrace counter practices that will replace sin. I think this is a foundational key to our spiritual formation.

So how do we “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles?” Here, I’m going to lean heavily on what I’ve learned from Dallas Willard.

“Throwing off” requires the practice of indirection. At the risk of being overly simplistic I’ll try to explain why. Our lives are made up of various components — soul, thoughts, feelings, will, body, and relationships. In a healthy functioning life, our will is directed by our thoughts and reinforced by our feelings. Our will then directs our body’s actions and how we relate to others. Knowing God (John 17:3), and the profound life and truth that experiential knowledge brings, shapes our thoughts and feelings so our will is submitted to God’s will. Then God’s will, cooperatively through our will, is naturally and easily expressed through our body.

Unfortunately for all of us, sin and brokenness have corrupted our thoughts and feelings. Those thoughts and feelings have malformed our will to be self-oriented, which is then expressed through our body and our relationships. Over time, our self-oriented will builds sinful habits into our body that are primarily triggered thoughtlessly by our feelings.

This is our experience of doing what we don’t want to do and not being able to do what we know we should do. When we try to directly “throw off” these sinful practices, we have very little success because the habits are so engrained and the will is powerless to change them. 

Imagine a car with a severe misalignment issue that always pulls toward the left. You can apply force to the steering wheel (the will) to manually adjust the direction. You might even have limited success steering the car straight down the road. But once you let go, the car returns to its default misalignment.

That is the description of simple behavior modification. Through gritted teeth we might be able to do what is right for a time. But because we’re internally misaligned, the next time the appropriate trigger comes, the misalignment takes over.

Indirection focuses our efforts, empowered by God’s grace, to the areas of our life that we can control. And our thoughts are the primary aspect of our life over which we have control. In turn, our thoughts determine our feelings. So when we focus effort through spiritual disciplines on our thoughts and feelings, they reform the will to surrender to God as well as begin forming new godly habits that retrain our body. Combined with God’s powerful and abundant grace, we experience transformation, ultimately expressed through our bodies and into our relationships.

This is Jesus’ lifestyle and practices that he promises to teach us in Matthew 11:28-30. It’s simple. Not necessarily easy. But doable and successful.

So let’s take an example — the compulsion to buy things you don’t need. Is this sin? Maybe. Maybe not. But I think for most of us it falls into either 1) something that hinders or 2) a sin that easily entangles depending on the underlying issues.

For some of us, we’re able to just change our purchasing patterns. But for others, it has become a severe issue expressed in always needing the next model or a specific brand, overspending, debt, wasted time and energy, and conflict with loved ones. Usually entwined with this issue is our distorted identity as well as a warped view God, enforced by the rush we experience when buying something new.

As Jesus’ apprentices, we interact with him and allow him to diagnose the underlying issues. We also let him prescribe the appropriate and sensible spiritual practices that will indirectly address the issue.

Most likely, we need to start in the area we have the most control — our thoughts. We need to address how we think about and experience God’s immense goodness and love. We need to learn to think well about God. This in turn will deeply affect how we feel about God.

I shared the following quote from Dallas Willard in a previous post, but I believe it’s worth repeating here:

“Those who experience moral failure are those who have failed to live a deeply satisfied life in Christ, almost without exception… The surest guarantee against failure is to be so at peace and satisfied with God that when wrongdoing presents itself, it isn’t even interesting. That is how we stay out of temptation.”

This peace and satisfaction with God starts with how we think about and experience God. So, directing a majority of our effort into changing our thought life is essential to moving toward this reality. We would do this through reading, memorizing, and prayerfully reflecting upon specific Scriptures. We would also incorporate the teaching of those who have skillfully ventured into this area.

We also need to embrace and live Jesus’ unhurried and relaxed life. Some of the effects of hurriedness are stress, anxiety, irritability, and exhaustion. This internal environment causes us to react thoughtlessly and selfishly to feelings, which in turn creates new habits or reinforces existing habits of sin and selfishness. 

Learning to live unhurriedly creates a relaxed internal environment from which we have ample room to practice spiritual disciplines throughout the moments of our life. 

Jesus would need to guide us into which disciplines to practice. But here are some sample disciplines he might have us practice throughout our day at home and work:

• Solitude and silence so our current malformed thoughts and feelings are able to slowly bleed away. 
• Fasting so we learn to depend on and be satisfied by the nourishment of God’s word rather than on what we can easily obtain ourselves.
• Service so we learn to regularly care for and love others through our time and efforts rather than focusing on ourselves.
• Generosity so we learn to regularly give to others rather getting what we want.
• Memorization so we constantly keep God’s word and guidance in our thoughts.
• Worship so we remember God’s love and goodness in our lives.

He may also lead us to practice specific things that are not “classical” spiritual disciplines. For example, he may have us put aside some money to give away every time we want to buy something we don’t need. Or he might have us develop a new creative hobby so the rush of buying something is slowly replaced with the satisfaction of creating something beautiful. Or he might have us limit our media consumption so we’re not bombarded by the advertisements and influences to buy new things.

In all of this, we must remember that the disciplines themselves don’t bring about true transformation. Nor are they signs of piety or godliness. 

All of us live our lives each day with routines and practices. Why not develop simple routines and practices that open small windows throughout our daily lives to God? This is what Jesus meant to seek God’s kingdom and faithfulness in Matthew 6:33. We create small windows throughout our day where we can interact with and experience God’s activity and faithfulness.

This is how we throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles so we can run with perseverance the race marked out for us.