Bible Study To Go
RUN TO WIN PART TWO:
WHAT’S THE PURPOSE OF THE RACE AND
WHERE DO WE GET THE POWER TO RUN
Foundational Verses
“You know that in a race all the runners run but only one wins the prize, don’t you? You must run in such a way that you may be victorious. Everyone who enters an athletic contest practices self-control in everything. They do it to win a wreath that withers away, but we run to win a prize that never fades. That is the way I run, with a clear goal in mind. That is the way I fight, not like someone shadow boxing.”
(1 Corinthians 9:24-26 ISV)
“Therefore, having so vast a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, and throwing off everything that hinders us and especially the sin that so easily entangles us, let us keep running with endurance the race set before us, fixing our attention on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of the faith, who, in view of the joy set before him, endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Think about the one who endured such hostility from sinners, so that you may not become tired and give up.”
(Hebrews 12:1-3 ISV)
Part One In Review
Part One of the Run To Win Bible Study To Go Series, focuses on keeping you moving forward throughout the high and low points in your life.
The focus of this four part series is to help you understand that you are in a race - a race called life. This race is run on two levels. On the first level, the race is run on a primarily natural level. This level is moved and motivated by our natural senses and experiences but also includes aspects of spiritual experiences. The second level of the race is run on a spiritual level. Running the race on this level, people are primarily moved and motivated by our reborn spiritual senses, but must still experience life within the boundaries our natural senses and experiences.
Unlike the competitive races that we may participate in or watch, our primary competitor is ourselves, not other people in the race. Even though we will have outside influences and hindrances while running our race, we are to help others to win their race, as well.
In Part Two of the series we will answer the questions:
The purpose of being in the race is summed up by Jesus Christ. The conversation is described in Matthew 22:34-40.
“After Jesus had made the Sadducees look foolish, the Pharisees heard about it and got together. One of them was an expert in the Jewish Law. So he tried to test Jesus by asking, “Teacher, what is the most important commandment in the Law?” Jesus answered: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. This is the first and most important commandment. The second most important commandment is like this one. And it is, “Love others as much as you love yourself.”
All the Law of Moses and the Books of the Prophets[a] are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:34-40)”
In this race, knowing that loving God and loving others as we ourselves, means that God put us in the race to run as part of His unified body.
“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?
But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be?
As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment.
But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”
(1 Corinthians 12: 12-27)