10.10.07
“FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT!”
II Corinthians 10:3-5
“For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and take captive of every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”
Put up your dukes, sinner! You want to fight? Is that what it means to fight a spiritual fight? I don’t think so. That is waging the spiritual fight by using the weapons of the world. What weapons are you using?
I have taught a Bible study on the book of First Timothy several times. One of the key Scriptures I share with the group I am teaching is I Timothy 6:12: “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.”
There again is that word fight. It is not a word that we should lightly use without a proper understanding. There are those who seem to delight in having a mean spirit toward the world, and think of that as a fight for the Lord. That is contrary to what Paul teaches here in II Corinthians as well as in I Timothy.
Let’s keep it simple, yet direct.
(1) We are in spiritual warfare. If you do not think so, you have already lost the battle. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are the enemies of the devil and he will use everything in his arsenal to defeat us. We either fight or we are finished!
(2) We do not use the weapons of the world in our fight. Okay — so what are the weapons of the world? Many could be listed, but some are; strife, cliquishness, envy, gossip, maliciousness, separation, and the like. These are things we may encounter from the enemy, but we should never be guilty of using these weapons.
(3) Our weapons must be spiritual weapons. They include; submission to the Lord, prayer, fasting, deep study of His Word, forgiveness, returning good for evil and many more of this same type.
So what is the promise from God as to the result of our battle? Timothy says that strongholds will be demolished. There are many types of strongholds. Some are strongholds which are no fault of our own. It may be something which was imposed upon us by situations beyond our control. These may be in the form of physical, mental or emotional situations. A case in point may be a baby born with a drug addiction as a result of his addicted mother.
There are other strongholds which are the result of our own foolish and sinful choices — the sins which so easily beset us! Some of these strongholds are not just difficult — THEY ARE IMPOSSIBLE! In either case, we need to use spiritual weapons against these strongholds.
As our Scripture for today indicates, we are to take hold of our thought life. AAAH! There is where the battle is won or lost! We are to bring our thoughts into obedience to the will of Jesus Christ, our Savior, but also our Lord. He is the ONE in control! It is he who fights our battles for us, as long as we remain in Him. What a wonderful Savior we serve!
Blessings dear hearts. Walk with God today, trust Him completely and be a blessing.
- - - Pastor Cecil