Once more, forget the things that are behind, as you start, as you run along the course from the world to heaven. Do not delay in considering what you have to give up; do not grudge the effort; do not turn aside your eyes to behold what you are leaving behind, what you are passing by the way. Temporal things, though so infinitely inferior to eternal, are near and palpable; while the spiritual are distant and indistinctly seen. If you ponder and weigh, if you count over too frequently the cost, your own carnal judgment, and Satan’s blinding influence, will check you at starting, or lure you aside. To look back, to gaze about you, to stand still for a moment, is perhaps to lose the race. “See,” says Satan, “what you are leaving, what you are passing. Here are riches, honour, friends, pleasure, ease.” You look, and the look leads you back, or makes you stumble, perhaps fall. “Onward, onward!” be this your cry; this your aim. Stay not in all the plain; look not behind you; look on; behold the goal; remember the prize. Think not of the past; regard not the present; aim at the future. Forgetting the things that are behind, reach forth unto those that are before. I have anticipated the other lesson of wisdom; that of reaching forth; of concentrating all your thoughts, and all your energies, on what is held out to you by GOD in Christ. You are not to measure the distance you have come; you are not to brood over stumblings, and falls, and past slowness; you are not to recall the things that you have left, nor to look at those you are passing. You are to run on, as if the race were all before you; as if the course were an untrodden one; as if there were good hope of reaching the goal. And you are to look steadfastly at the goal, and run eagerly towards it. This is your position; this your course; these your hopes. Gird up your loins then, lay aside every weight, the weight of worldly temptation, the weight of experienced failure, the weight of difficulties and troubles. Assured that the race may be run, assay to run it. Knowing that the prize is still proffered, attempt to gain it. Gather experience from the past, what to do, what to avoid. Redouble your efforts, quicken your pace, because the time is short, and much of it has been trifled away. Take hope from the future, because the lists are still open, because you are accepted candidates for the prize, because the king waits to crown you.