Fail or Finish - Qualified or Disqualified

It doesn’t matter how well you’ve run the race or played the game if you don’t finish it you’ll be disqualified. If you loose your intensity in the end and don’t play to win you will fail. “The season” of gluttony and financial unrestraint is about to come upon us and many will yield to temptation and use “the Holidays” as an excuse and choose to lose. It’s not time to slack because if you do you’ll surely lack. It’s time to put in the winning effort and push yourself to obtain the victory - To go against the flow and believe and achieve and prepare for next year. And to start thinking about your goals for 2010 and getting ready to start next years race in top condition! The Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts are not the problem but the general lack of self restraint leading up to them. So beware or you’ll get caught in the snare and end up wondering why you lost and cry. If you “cast off restraint” you just might die so why not give something new a try. Spend Q4 getting fit for our King and start next year in full swing!

Prov 29:18 KJV
Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
NKJV
Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint;
But happy is he who keeps the law.
MES
If people can't see what God is doing,
they stumble all over themselves;
But when they attend to what he reveals,
they are most blessed.
TLB
When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild.
But whoever obeys the law is joyful.
NCV
Where there is no word from God, people are uncontrolled,
but those who obey what they have been taught are happy.

Prov 23:19-21
19 Hear, my son, and be wise;
And guide your heart in the way.
20 Do not mix with winebibbers,
Or with gluttonous eaters of meat;
21 For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.
NKJV

2 Tim 4:7 (Caps. added)
7 I have fought the good fight, I have FINISHED THE RACE, I have kept the faith.
NKJV

1 Cor 9:24-27 (Caps. added)
24 Do you not know that those who run in a RACE all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. 25 And everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. 26 Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. 27 But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become DISQUALIFIED.
NKJV

Col 1:12 (Caps. added)
…giving thanks to the Father who has QUALIFIED us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.
NKJV

PIE90 Scripture:

Prov 23:21
21 For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty,
And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.
NKJV

Prov 23:21
21 Drunks and gluttons will end up on skid row,
in a stupor and dressed in rags.
MES

Prov 23:21
For those who take delight in drink and feasting will come to be in need; and through love of sleep a man will be poorly clothed.
BBE

Prov 23:20-21
20 Do not associate with those who drink too much wine,
with those who eat too much meat,
21 because both a drunk and a glutton will become poor.
Drowsiness will dress a person in rags.
GW

Prov 23:20-21
20 Don't associate with people who drink too much wine or stuff themselves with food. 21 Drunkards and gluttons will be reduced to poverty. If all you do is eat and sleep, you will soon be wearing rags.
GNT