Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 223 · August 11
The Race and the Crown
“Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.”
Everyone in the church at Corinth had stood and watched a footrace, and they all knew how one ends. Paul says it plainly: "they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize." Then he gives the command to all of them together: "So run, that ye may obtain." He borrows the picture for the effort it takes. Three verses later he describes that effort without any glamour: "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway."
So, Lord, we bring You this chapter as it stands. We have wanted the crown without the training, and we have been careful to call our comfort wisdom. Make us "temperate in all things," in the plain sense of those words: in food and money, and in the hours we sleep and the hours we waste. Keep us from recommending to other people a road we have quietly stopped walking. And we are not asking to beat anybody in our church, because there is nobody there we are running against.
"Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible." The wreath of leaves handed out at those games soon withered to nothing. Near the end of his life, writing as a prisoner, Paul tells Timothy where his own crown is kept and who else will receive one: "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."
In a footrace, only one runner receives the prize. In this race, the Lord has a crown laid up for everyone who loves His appearing, so you can run without fear of losing it to someone faster. Keep running, and keep your eyes on the One who will hand it to you.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 223 is Shield and Lifter (Psalm 3:3).