“Don’t you know that those who in a race run but only one receives ThePRIZE? Run to win that PRIZE! Competing for the PRIZE means that everything the runner does is designed to enhance the chance to win.
Now, if people do that just to get a trophy to put on display for a while, what do you think we should do when we’re competing for an eternal prize.” 1 Corinthians 9:24-25
CALL TO WHAT?
“Press toward the goal for the prize of THE UPWARD CALL of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:14
The Complete Jewish Bible gives a clear picture of what “Press toward” actually means…
“I keep pursuing the goal in order to win the prize offered by God’s upward calling in the Messiah Yeshua.”
The Prize is offered, put in reserve, for the one who pursues, persists, endures… WINS! The Prize is only WON by persistence – in Jesus’ words, “the one who keeps asking, doesn’t stop seeking and never quits knocking.” He’s describing complete possession of the whole heart, mind and bodily strength by the Spirit of Jesus in pursuit of God’s Call. What kind of call? Upward. To what? to HIM. Not to what He can do for you but TO HIM.
Jesus expressed everything about God in human flesh. That’s the reason He came as a human baby. He was inseminated by the Spirit, the determination and power of God in a young virgin’s womb and born the Seed of God, to show lost and dominated human beings what it looks like to be what God made us to be. And then went to the Cross as the Lamb of God to give us the prerogative to, in spite of suffering even the limit of the devil’s weapons, to be WITH HIM. Human beings were given the honor of bearing the Image of God. Jesus lead the way and then said, “Come, follow Me and I’ll make you all you were designed to be. We’ll walk together through the valley of the shadow of death into the brilliant Light of the physical presentation of all that God is, the infinite, manifold aspects of His nature, integrated into one organism, the Body of Christ, one with Him in an eternally renewing, exhilarating, ecstatically creative Divine Dance. Nothing in our present language will ever be able to express what UPWARD CALL means, but we can now, this minute, today, every day be the physical illustration and testament of the abandon of all other pursuits for the persistent determination to reach the goal, to win the Prize – Him.