Striving for the Prize - Lesson 1 - Introduction

Whether you want to be or not you are in a race.
It has already begun and you have not yet completed it,
so that puts you somewhere in the middle.

Are you ready?
Have you prepared?
How is your focus?
How is your endurance?

Are you running from something or
are you running toward something?

Let’s search the scriptures and prepare for the race you were designed to complete.

I Cor. 9:24-27, ‘Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.’

Here are some topics we are going to be covering in the next 13 weeks…

Preparing
Obstacles
Spiritual Guides
Destined to Run
Endurance
… not to the Swift
… not To and Fro
… not be Weary
Toward the Goal
The Home Stretch
The Prize Won

Opening thoughts …




Galatians 5:7, ‘Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?’

Philippians 2:16, ‘Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.’

Philippians 3:14, ‘I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.’

2 Timothy 4:7, ‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:’

Hebrews 12:1, ‘Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,’

Hebrews 12:2, ‘Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.’

Hebrews 12:3, ‘For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.’

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