Discipleship and "the prize"

I was reading "the faith chapter" in Hebrews 11 a little while ago...and intrigued by the last verses 39-40. The version I'm reading, NLT says,

"All of these people we have mentioned received God's approval because of their faith, yet none of them received all that God had promised. For God had far better things in mind for us that would also benefit them, for they can't receive the prize at the end of the race until we finish the race."

Whew. My first inclination was to skim over this quickly because it was hard to follow all the "we", "us", "they" and "them" statements. But I thought again and decided to try to understand it.

Look at two other versions with me:

The Message Bible says,
"Not one of these people, even though their lives of faith were exemplary, got their hands on what was promised. God had a better plan for us: that their faith and our faith would come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours."

And Amplified says,
"And all of these, though they won divine approval by [means of] their faith, did not receive the fulfillment of what was promised,
Because God had us in mind and had something better and greater in view for us, so that they [these heroes and heroines of faith] should not come to perfection apart from us [before we could join them]."

The point of unity becomes so clear in these verses...we need each other, both here on earth and in the heavenly realm, in order to be complete and perfected as God intended. We cannot be loners in our faith. Rather, we will be completing and perfecting our own lives (now and eternally) when we seek to speak LIFE into others and build BEAUTY into the lives of others. Then, together, being a TEAM, we will receive THE PRIZE for which we have long awaited.

The completion of our reward doesn't end with us. When we die, it is not the end of the ramifications of our lives...including our rewards. Our eternal rewards will have much to do with the effectiveness of our discipleship...how well we have overflowed God's Spirit into the lives of those around us.

For more on effective discipleship, read Glenn McDonald's book, "The Disciple Making Church". I read it this summer and it was excellent!