It hit my early this morning during my quiet time that the spiritual imperative of RECOGNIZING OUR INADEQUACY without God is a FIGHT that I want to be “the good fight” Paul talks about in 2 Timothy.
“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 2 Timothy 4:7
We all—that includes YOU—have a fight to fight in this life on planet earth. Everyone’s fight is against the same, formidable foe—SATAN.
This opponent does not want to be our friend. He wants us dead. And his biggest weapon to that end is convincing us we can be the boss of our life and make it through life without God.
The fight we fight today comes in waves. Each one of them has some kind of “challenge backdrop.” It might be our health or the health of a loved one. It might be a relationship that got snagged on a rocky shore. Or it might be a broad overlay on our life like the COVID pandemic that colors everything dark.
It’s difficult to believe God will protect us in such times. It’s difficult to trust Jesus when the clouds rain pain. It’s difficult to fight the good fight when 100% of the punches thrown land on us and we cannot set a single counter in motion. That’s when we must remember that the fight is not ours…it belongs to Jesus.
Our primary weapon in the good fight is WORSHIPPING JESUS above anything and everything of the world. To fight the good fight of faith means that we abide in God’s Word, no matter how we feel or what we think (Romans 10:17).
Of course it is never easy. In any fight, there will be times when we need to pick ourselves up off the canvas and keep fighting. We need to remember that our faith is powerful enough to win the fight. And we will win if we do not give up.
Fighting the good fight of faith requires that we set aside any notion of being boss of our life. That we stop trying to control circumstances through our own, fallible reasoning.
We never win the fights that prop up in our life. Jesus wins the fight.
I ask God to give me the strength to fight the good fight through my faith and the power it creates to withstand any attack.
HOW ABOUT YOU?
What part of the good fight do you need to fight today?
“Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” 1 Timothy 6:12