The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"The Good Fight"
"Fight the good fight of faith" (I Timothy 6:12).
Faith is a fight, isn't it? In a fallen world, populated by malevolent spiritual enemies and the flesh of both others and ourselves that "lusteth against the Spirit," we must recognize that trusting God will always be challenged in our present existence (Galatians 5:17). Moreover, we must also see the challenge as "a good fight."
Many reasons can be offered for seeing the fight as good. For the present, let us consider the most basic, and perhaps the most important. The Apostle Paul called Timothy to a "good fight of faith." That is, the conflict in which we engage as believers involves the same blessed means by which we became believers - "by grace are ye saved through faith" (Ephesians 2:8). The Christ of our salvation serves also as "the Captain of our salvation" (Hebrews 2:10). When challenged by devilish, worldly, and fleshly foes, we "stand fast" by kneeling first (I Corinthians 16:13). Indeed, our enemies' attacks always in some manner involve leading us away from faith in the Lord Jesus and unto self-centeredness, self-focus, and self-confidence in our own non-existent spiritual abilities to engage cunning spiritual foes. They will unmercifully trounce us if we seek to fight by any means other than God's grace, known and accessed by faith. "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might" (Ephesians 6:10).
James called believers to "resist the devil." He did so by first calling us to "submit yourselves therefore to God" (James 4:7). We fight for our Lord by fighting from Him. Indeed, in the wilderness temptation of our Savior, He "trained" for the fight by forty days of fasting, which placed Him in the perfect frame of heart, mind, and body to overcome Satan's challenge through the human weakness that prepared Him to most keenly avail Himself of His Father's strength (Matthew 4:1-11). "The Son can do nothing of Himself… the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works" (John 5:19; 14:10). Thus, after the "first" Adam fell in a blessed garden of plenty because he did not trust God, the last Adam overcame in a wilderness of weakness wherein He accessed the power of God by faith to overcome the most severe temptations (I Corinthians 15:45-47).
Somewhere just now, a battered believer lies in the dust of this presently fallen world. However, he stands spiritually strong in his Lord by lifting his head to affirm, "Father, I trust you." Much of earthly circumstance and condition may not appear to instantly change. Spiritually, however, "a good soldier of Jesus Christ" arises in the power of God to reveal the triumph of a risen Savior and "the victory which overcometh the world, even our faith" (I John 5:4). The annals of Christendom will likely not record the victory for public proclamation. The vast majority are not. However, Heaven's eternal chronicle will contain the narrative of grace received by faith, and of the world, the devil, and the flesh yet again suffering defeat at the nail-pierced hands of Christ, as executed through the trusting heart of His saint who resisted the devil by submitting to God, and who indeed fought the good fight.
Sometimes it seems that the enemy of our soul wins
over and over and over and over again.
But if we could see the Truth much more clearly, my friend,
we'd see Christ triumph over death, hell, and sin,
over and over and over and over again…
Over and over and over and over again.
The Tomb is empty, the Throne above occupied.
For Christ is risen again, from death glorified.
So remember when hot, stinging tears fill your eyes,
the triumph He's shone so many times in our lives,
over and over and over and over again…
Over and over and over and over again.
Forever draws nigh, we will be with Him there soon, my friend.
The trials of this life will be gone when we're with Him in Heaven.
Glories we'll see, majesty without end,
that sing the glad hymn, Christ is risen again,
over and over and over and over again.
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."(Romans 8:35-37)
Weekly Memory Verse
Fight the good fight of faith.
(I Timothy 6:12)
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