日々いのちを勝ち取る

What God needs is a people who have seen His intentions and purpose, seen the destiny of His Son and of the Church which is His Body, and devote themselves to the fulfilment of His will. Such prayer draws us into a spiritual conflict, for which the Lord told us to be sure and have a sword. It is so easy to be discouraged, so easy to be put off or silenced. With our sword in our hand we must stick at it and press the battle through to victory. ①

体という朽ち行くもののための戦いは、朽ちないもののための戦いの影。体のいのちのために立つことで、主の（御体の）「いのち」のために立つことを主は教えようとしておられる。
個人のwelfareを超えて、主の御目的に目を据えること。目線をもっと前へ。

And so we come to this word: 'Fight... Lay hold on eternal life.' Now, we know that eternal life is a gift in response to faith in the Lord Jesus. It is a gift, but that is not the end of the story. When it has been given, it becomes the battleground for the rest of the experience of the Christian; right through to the end, that very life is the battleground of all true Christians. If it can by any means be neutralised, made inoperative, arrested, Satan will do it; that is his object. On the other hand, the Lord's object is to make us, with Paul, 'know Him, and the power of His resurrection', in ever greater fulness. If ever a man knew the power of His resurrection, it was Paul, through many, many deadly conflicts, terrible battles and deep experiences; and yet, in his last writings, right at the end of his long, full experience of knowing resurrection upon resurrection, he still says: 'That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection' (Phil. 3:10). It is as much as to say: 'I don't know all that there is to know of that yet. I know a lot, but there is much more to know of that yet.'

And to Timothy, much about the same time, Paul writes: "Lay hold on the life eternal." That is where I would put the emphasis. Do not just passively rest upon the fact that through faith in Jesus Christ you have eternal life. Remember that, from day to day, that life is to conquer; it is to be the basis of your very survival , it is to be the very means of your daily overcoming. It has to be the ground of your physical life, as well as your spiritual life: for body, you must lay hold on that life; for victory, you must lay hold on that life. Would that we knew more about this in our prayer gatherings - really laying hold for victory, laying hold for the overthrow of the enemy - this positive taking hold, in spirit, of life. This is the battle; this is the very nature of things. In all this terrible welter in which we find ourselves, we have not, on the one hand, to accept it as inevitable, things being as they are; nor, on the other hand, to have a merely passive faith that, in the end, the Lord will triumph. Between those two, there is all this in the Word of God about our being positive, about our laying hold; about our attitude - on the one side, of refusing; on the other side, of laying hold of God's end. ②

The Lord save our fighting spirit, and 'teach our hands to war, our fingers to fight!' (Ps. 144:1).

(from the articles ①Spiritual Warfare and ②Spiritual Warfare(1959) by Austin Sparks)

主が与えようとしておられるものは「いのち」。敵が常に狙っているのもこの主の「いのち」。キリストへの信仰によって永遠のいのちを持っているという事実に、ただ受動的に休んでいてはならない。いのちは日々勝ち取って行かなければならない。主の甦りの力を、体のいのちの土台、霊的いのちの土台として「積極的に」日々掴んで行くこと。神のご目的を掴んでいること。 主にあってすでに得たものと、やがて訪れる完成。この２つの間に、私たちの「積極的な態度」がなければならない。
（パウロの気迫はコレですね。）