God and His word are the instructors to help us in the spiritual race that we are called to run. We look unto the Lord Jesus -v2-. We can so easily be put off in our running. We get snared as if caught up in brambles, and this makes our 'running the race' hard work. Unfortunately we make ourselves soft targets for sin. We might say, as we look at ourselves, -we are too easily ensnared.' We are ensnared by, for example by besetting sins again and again. So we want to get beyond this sad and sorry state.--Main Headings---1- A hostile lodger-2- We can welcome it-3- Lay it aside