Our apostle compared this call to running a race. Being the running type myself, I push this analogy to the finish line.

It's about endurance, isn't it? It's not like we're required to endure in order to be saved; we're not. For me, something deep inside wants to finish what I started. Didn't God build this into humanity? He did me. As Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:7-8 (his final letter)---

"I have contended the ideal contest. I have finished my career. I have kept the faith. Furthermore, there is reserved for me the wreath of righteousness, which the Lord, the just Judge, will be paying to me in that day; yet not to me only, but also to all who love His advent."

So taken with the joys of following through, Paul fishes for and finds three different ways of describing it:

1) "I have contended the ideal contest"
2) "I have finished my career"
3) "I have kept the faith"

As I said, none of us are required to endure, but there is a wreath of righteousness God pays for it. This cannot be salvation itself, for salvation is not a payment. The good news for those who consider themselves mere "hangers on": God also pays this wreath to those loving His advent, which is---when you think about it---the same as enduring. For loving His advent (looking and waiting for Him to snatch us away from here) requires living and breathing upon this vale of tears—a thing that many of us, at times, despair of.