Food for the Soul Monday: Our Greatest Prize

If you’ve ever been in a competition where there's a prize to win, then you know the joy of receiving a prize. It feels good. It feels very deserving. After all, the hard work that we’ve put in to participate in that competition [whatever it is for you] has been recognized. It’s been awarded and that prize is reflective of your determination, fortitude, & hard work. That prize is your pride. That prize is your sense of achievement.
 
Wouldn’t you say it’s against our nature to believe that we should receive a prize for something that we didn’t work hard for? Doesn’t it feel undeserving? Unfair? Wouldn’t you feel like a fraud if you were given a prize for first place in a competition where you actually came in last?
 
I think we would agree we would. It’s against our nature, but it’s not the reality of what we experience in Christ, our greatest Prize- our greatest Possession. We did no work to receive Him and the salvation He gives (Eph. 2:10).  He, in His great love and mercy, received us first and caused our eyes to be opened to our sin so that we can rightly see His redemption. We can fully accept His forgiveness and we can freely live by His Spirit. This great Prize becomes our identity.
 
However, the greatest enemy of our soul, Satan, works overtime to make us believe that we must work for this great Prize to keep it. He seeks to cheapen this Prize as if man’s merit, intellect, traditions or hard work can attain it.  How foolish he is!
 
Colossians 2:18-19 (NASB) tells us:
 
Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, 19 and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God.
 
Paul is warning us that there are even people within the Church who falsely teach us that Christ isn’t enough. That although we have this Prize, they want us to feel as if there’s more to add to this Prize; there’s more work to make this Prize complete. This couldn’t be further from the truth ladies.
 
Christ is complete and knowing Him makes us complete (Col 2:10).
 
I pray you will know that the great Prize of Jesus Christ far surpasses anything this world can offer and it can’t be attained or maintained by our own efforts. His love draws us and His love keeps us. Our awareness pushes us closer.
 
Peace, love & blessings,
Yodit