GodSprings - February 24, 2016

Am I Simply Running or Running for a Prize?

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24 (NIV)

The Olympic Games, Mexico, 1968. The marathon is the final event on the program. The Olympic stadium is packed and there is excitement as the first athlete, an Ethiopian runner, enters the stadium. The crowd erupts as he crosses the finish line.

Way back in the field is another runner, John Stephen Akwhari of Tanzania. He has been eclipsed by the other runners. After 30 kilometers his head is throbbing, his muscles are aching and he falls to the ground. He has serious leg injuries and officials want him to retire, but he refuses. With his knee bandaged Akwhari picks himself up and hobbles the remaining 12 kilometers to the finish line. An hour after the winner has finished Akwhari enters the stadium. All but a few thousand of the crowd have gone home. Akwhari moves around the track at a painstakingly slow pace, until finally he collapses over the finish line.

It is one of the most heroic efforts of Olympic history. Afterward, asked by a reporter why he had not dropped out, Akwhari says, “My country did not send me to start the race. They sent me to finish.”

How can we live a godly life like an athlete who competes to win? In ancient Greece, the Olympics, held in Athens, and the Isthmian Games, held in Corinth, were the popular sports attractions of the day. The Greeks treated their athletes with much the same fanfare as athletes receive today. In a culture filled with sports fans, Paul had an easy way to illustrate how a Christian should “run,” or live life.

The difference between the athletic races and the Christian “race” is that every Christian can win. From Paul, we can learn a few lessons from the wide world of sports. Paul, like any good coach, zeroed in on two things we all need to practice in order to make sure that we win the prize: discipline and self-control. Discipline is doing, where self-control is denying.

We must discipline, or build up, our spiritual bodies by conforming our minds, our attitudes, and our desires to those of Jesus Christ. We must also exhibit self-control, like a training athlete, by saying no to self-centered desires that can take our focus off the finish line.

If we have not been competing to win, then let us begin our training today. Let us cast off any sin that weighs us down, slows us down, or wears us down and begin to compete like an Olympian for the everlasting crown of gold that awaits every competitor at the heavenly finish line.