By Kingsley Baehr

As we look forward this month to the Olympics, I am re-minded of a number of places in the Bible that inform us of what is necessary to par-ticipate in the Spiritual Olympics—God’s prescribed way to reach the ultimate joy of His “Well done!” and to receive the rewards which He has waiting for us.
O – An OPENED understanding: [Jesus]
OPENED their understanding that they might comprehended the Scrip-tures. Then we can ... “OBTAIN salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,”
L - “... LAY ASIDE every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us...and run with endurance the race that is set before us, LOOKING UNTO JESUS...,” and
Y - “... YIELD [ourselves] to God as those who are alive from the dead, and [our] members as instruments of righteousness to God.”
M - Remember—it is “‘not by MIGHT nor by power, but by MY SPIRIT,’ says the LORD of hosts.”
P - We must “PRESS toward the goal for the PRIZE of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus,”
I - Since there is an “INHERITANCE, IMPERISHABLE and undefiled that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for [us].”
C -Like the great apostle Paul, we should be able to say at the end of our lives, “... I have finished my COURSE, I have kept the faith... 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 to all those also who love His appearing.”
S -SO, when we STAND before the SAVIOR OF THE WORLD, will we hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant,... enter into the joy of your Lord.” or “I never knew you: depart from me.”?