Keep your eyes on the prize!

The Christian walk is not an easy one. It’s a journey on which the road is filled with potholes – very deep potholes. There are so many potholes that you are bound to fall into  at some point. It’s difficult to avoid the potholes because they are close to one another, and there are times when it’s hard to decipher where to place your feet. Worst of all, the potholes will never be fixed, at least, not in this life.

It’s the fundamental reason why the Christian must put his or her focus on the life ahead, or the life to come. This life promises no hope of a better tomorrow.  The situation around us will get worse before it gets better, and that better will only come when King Jesus comes bursting through the clouds at the sound of the seventh trumpet. The dead in Christ will come to life first, and those who are alive, will be changed in the twinkling of an eye and proceed with him to the Mount of Olives (Zech 1.1).

The apostle Paul has much to say about the journey of life that we are travelling, and what lies ahead, if we keep our focus on what comes after our sojourn on Earth ends.

2 Tim. 4:1, “I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; ² Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. ³ For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; ⁴ And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. ⁵ But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. ⁶ For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. ⁷ I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: ⁸ Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.”

Paul, having gone through much persecution for the Word of God, knows what it means to make sacrifices, knowing there is a great reward ahead, if we are overcomers and endure to the end. Phil. 3: 14, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. ⁶ Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.”

Endurance is paramount when we are on this journey. It’s just like the athletes in the Olympics who are engaged in those races that test their ability to keep up and cross the finish line. They know it is only if they can endure to the end they have a chance of winning. If they fall along the way and couldn’t get up and start again, there is absolutely no chance of winning. They have to endure to the end.

Matt. 24: 13. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. Rev. 3:21. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.

As we seek to maintain this journey, let us keep our eyes on the prize. It’s within sight; we must be strengthened by all that is happening around us and realize that God is going to keep His promise to us. If we endure to the end, we will be in His everlasting kingdom – forever! For  more on this subject, download FREE our booklet, HOW YOU CAN BECOME AN OVERCOMER.