10 Juni, 2013

The need for self-discipline

Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete,
but [only] one receives the prize?
So run [your race] that you may lay hold [of the prize] and make it yours.

Now every athlete who goes into training
conducts himself temperately and restricts himself in all things.
They do it to win a wreath that will soon wither,
but we [do it to receive a crown of eternal blessedness] that cannot wither.

Therefore I do not run uncertainly (without definite aim).
I do not box like one beating the air and striking without an adversary.

But [like a boxer] I buffet my body [handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships]
and subdue it, for fear that after proclaiming to others the Gospel
and things pertaining to it, I myself should become unfit
[not stand the test, be unapproved and rejected as a counterfeit].

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