“Man’s enslavement to the most relentless masters — passion, selfishness, envy, hatred, and revenge — is conquered only by a mighty struggle. Every hour of delay makes the struggle more severe” (SH,407, emphasis added).
“Final deliverance from error, whereby we rejoice in immortality, boundless freedom, and sinless sense, is not reached through paths of flowers…”(SH 22).
“Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:24).
Strong’s Concordance, on the word “strive” –
agónizomai: to contend for a prize, struggle
Phonetic Spelling: (ag-o-nid’-zom-ahee)
Short Definition: I strive, contend
Definition: I am struggling, striving (as in an athletic contest or warfare); I contend, as with an adversary.
From Helps Word Studies:
agṓn (a masculine noun, and the root of the English words, “agony” ,”agonize”) – properly, a contest (struggle), a grueling conflict (fight); (figuratively) positive struggle that goes with “fighting the good fight of faith” (1 Tim 6:12) – which literally states,
“Struggle (agōnízomai) the good struggle (agṓn) of the (life of) faith.”
Agṓn refers to “an (athletic) contest; hence, a struggle (in the soul)” (Souter).
Victory or Death – from https://bit.ly/2HScVlI
“The modern Olympic device ‘Participating is more important than winning’ is certainly not applicable to the ancient games. The ancient mentality was rather one of ‘over my dead body!’. Before the contest, athletes begged Zeus for ‘victory or death’. Boxers or pancratiasts who had preferred death to defeat were set as examples. This ideal is comparable with the war ideal of ‘dying for your country’.
“In combat sports this ideal was on rare occasions converted into reality. Especially boxing and pankration were rough sports in which the athletes could get heavily wounded. In only a few cases the match indeed ended in the death of one of the athletes. The most famous example is probably the death of Arrichion.
“Killing your opponent was not forbidden: a victory could only be taken away if the death was the consequence of an offence to the rules, as in the case of Kleomedes.”
See also: “The Bloody, Deadly, Heavy Fights of Ancient Greece” – https://bit.ly/2FhaDXG