Strip off and throw aside every weight and everything that hinders you and the sin which clings to and entangles you and run the race set before you. Do this looking away from all that will distract with your eyes focused on Jesus.
Awake and put on who you really are. Arise and shake yourself from the old things, the old thoughts, and the old habits. Arise and loose yourself from all that keeps you bound.
Awake and put on your strength which is the joy of the Lord. Arise and live a life of hope. Strip off the old negative habits of thought and run with Him the race you are called to.
Press on to lay hold of and grasp and make your own that for which Jesus has laid hold of you. Press toward the goal to win the prize to which God is calling you. Fight the good fight of faith to lay hold of the life to which you are called. Fight the good fight to finish your race.
Hebrews 12:1-2 – Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us, looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Isaiah 52:1-2 – Awake, awake, put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for henceforth there shall no more come into you the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake yourself from the dust; arise, sit [erect in a dignified place], O Jerusalem; loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive Daughter of Zion.
Philippians 3:12-14 – Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own. I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.
1 Timothy 6:12; 2 Timothy 4:7 – Fight the good fight of the faith; lay hold of the eternal life to which you were summoned and [for which] you confessed the good confession [of faith] before many witnesses. I have fought the good (worthy, honorable, and noble) fight, I have finished the race, I have kept (firmly held) the faith.
Hebrews 12:12-13 – Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level paths for your feet, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 – Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
There is a prize that only few obtain, and that is finding and finishing their race. There is a pressing, there is a fight and much diligence required to press on and grasp the fullness of that which you are called to.
The best things of God do not just fall upon you regardless of the fact that they are His will. As the Israelites had to fight and kick the enemies out of the land that there were given, we have to kick the enemies out of our lives. This includes not only old sins and habits but any thinking habit that hinders us from being who we were made to be.
