Have you watched those football plays where a guy intercepts the ball and heads toward the end zone. He starts celebrating at about the 5 yard line, and then drops the ball — JUST before crossing the goal line. It’s almost hilarious to watch – unless he is playing for ‘your’ team.
The Apostle Paul ran his race well. As he wrote his last epistle to his ‘son in the faith’ Timothy, he said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith;” (2 Timothy 4:7). Paul didn’t drop the ball as he neared the goal. He held on, continued on, and pursued getting more and more like Christ, all the way to the end.
As I get older, the temptation to relax and coast in is always there. But I am praying, and desiring to finish like Paul.
Philippians 3:13–15 Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you;
Lord willing, we will look at this on Sunday!
John Wetzig
