Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold of eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
—1 Timothy 6:12 (NKJV)
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Romans 10:17). We fight the good fight of faith with the knowledge of the Word of God and by believing and declaring the truth of who we are in Christ.
“Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God” (1 Corinthians 15:34a, NKJV).
The enemy battles us from within our minds with lies—with deception—and twists Scripture to deceive us. He tempts us to believe things contrary to God’s truth. We must know the truth of God’s Word and what Christ has given us. The temptation to sin rises in the mind. We must wake up to the knowledge of the righteousness we have in Christ to fight the enemy. We must lay hold of eternal life and confess the faith that we received when we were saved.
“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7, NKJV).
Don’t submit your thoughts to the lies of the enemy. Don’t give him any power in your life. When you submit your thoughts to God, you resist the enemy.
The enemy flees from the righteousness of God. We fight sin from the position of God's righteousness Christ has given us. When we submit to God, we submit our thought life to Him. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin with the righteousness that He has given us in Christ. Winning those battles in the mind can only be won by the Holy Spirit convincing us of our right standing in Christ.
When we understand how to fight sin from a position of righteousness, then we can understand how to fight the battle for our promises from a position of victory in Christ.
Many believers don’t have knowledge of God in regard to the righteousness Jesus purchased for them. When you know the power of the righteousness Christ has given you, the Holy Spirit fills you with spiritual wisdom in your knowledge of Him (Ephesians 1:17-18). Awake to the righteousness Christ has given you. Allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the Word to you. Jesus has won the total and final victory over hell, sin, sickness, death, and the enemy!
You fight the good fight of faith from a position of victory. You never fight with an attitude of defeat. Take hold of the promises that are yours in the assurance of the new life Christ has given you. Have you confessed and declared your hope to others? Well, keep confessing and declaring the truth of God’s promises. And hold fast to the confession of your hope without wavering, for God who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).
How do you fight the good fight of faith and hang on to your promise when you are battle-weary? Take hold of the promise God has given you. Stand and trust Him. Take up the shield of faith with which you extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one (Ephesians 6:16). Know the Word. You can’t stand and trust God if you don’t know His Word. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God in your heart (Romans 10:17).
“For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them” (Mark 11:23-24, NKJV).
Do you have to see God’s promise to believe it? Believing is trusting that when you pray your promise is already yours. It may be a long time before you experience your promise. But you fight the good fight of faith. You keep taking the truth of God’s Word at its full value by faith. You take His promise as your own. When you speak to your mountain——when you pray believing, Jesus says in Mark 11:24, your promise will come to pass.
“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
As unfathomable as it is with your natural mind, believe by faith that your sinless Lord became your sin, so you might become God’s righteousness. That is God's Good News which seems almost too good to be true. But it is true. Believe in the promise God has revealed to you in His Word. His promise is true. When you pray from your position of right standing in Christ, nothing will keep you from receiving what God has promised. When you believe in God’s truth, you are able to stand and fight the good fight of faith—declaring what you believe in God’s realm is true for you.
© 2023 Lynn Lacher
www.lynnlacher.com/2023/10/fight-good-fight.html
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