You that discern the prize of Jehovah's calling, and who are endeavoring to press along the line toward the mark, "gird up the loins of your mind"; strengthen and fortify your purposes and efforts; renew your determination; redouble your diligence; cast aside the weights of unnecessary worldly cares; increase your zeal; and, as the Apostle urges, run with patience the race set before you. Run, not like one who is merely beating the air, but like one who has a purpose in view, and who, in desperate earnest, is determined to make his calling and election sure.
The noble example of the Ancient Worthies, as they, enclosing us as a type circumscribes its antitype, testifies of God's faithfulness to the loyal, and admonishes us to cast aside our besetting sins and errors and our weights of selfishness and worldliness which encumber us in the race for the prize. So stripped, we may the more readily persevere in the race of attaining and retaining Christlikeness.
REPRINTS
Heb. 11:2-40; Jas. 5:10, 11; Psa. 19:12, 13; 2 Cor. 7:1; Col. 3:8; 1 Pet. 2:1; Phil. 3:13, 14; 1 Cor. 9:24, 26; Heb. 6:1; Luke 21:19; Heb. 10:36; Jas. 1:4; 5:7.
