Every week in our country millions of people go to stadiums and arenas to participate in the thrills and chills of athletic competition. Athletic competition attracts people as participants and spectators for a variety of reasons. Perhaps the most universal reason for the appeal of sports is the similarity between what goes on in the arena of athletic competition and the arena of life. Athletic competition is a microcosm of life, because we all love to compete and win.

In our second lesson for today, Saint Paul uses an image from the arena of athletic competition to describe the nature of the Christian life. Paul compares the Christian life to running a race. In a series of very carefully chosen verbs Paul dramatically describes the Christian life like a race as he "presses on" toward vic…