Fight the Good Fight
I can still picture our family’s first television set housed inside a lovely piece of handcrafted furniture. Its double doors remained closed until episodes of I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, and Ed Sullivan flooded our living room. My mother became an avid fan of a local chef, whose daily shows somehow improved upon her already scrumptious meals. But what I never understood was my father’s fascination with boxing. Of all things to enjoy…the ring, the ropes, the referee, and the rowdies became part of our household routine. It didn’t make sense taking pleasure in extreme blows and debilitating knockouts! Shouting for the underdog, he was gleeful when the favored was defeated. This gentle, godly man was crazy about the sport of boxing. It was as simple as that. Never one to be engaged in punching battles of his own, my dad just loved to watch a “good fight.”
How can the words “good” and “fight” be in the same sentence? Can a punch to the jaw ever be beneficial? In a spiritual sense, we are all engaged in battle. We are not to sit idly by in this life to be overcome by the enemy of our soul. The author of Hebrews tells us to do something about it. Last week our lesson focused on the armor of God. Today, we’ll consider more references to fighting the good fight of faith.
Read I Timothy 6:12
1. In your opinion, what is meant by “fighting the good fight of the faith”? With whom are we fighting?
Read I Corinthians 9:26-27
2. What does discipline have to do with the good fight?
Read 2 Corinthians 10:4-5
3. What kind of battle takes place in our mind? How can we fight back?
Read Hebrews 12:1-4
4. What else will help us fight the good fight of faith?
5. What should we consider about Jesus in order to strengthen our personal faith?
The Christian life is a battle against evil. We can’t hide in a corner and let the enemy beat us up. We have to fight back with the tools God has given us. When the enemy comes against us with fear and discouragement, we must take action. We can demolish false arguments by choosing to focus on biblical truths. We can throw off sin and other hindrances by fixing our eyes on the author and finisher of our faith. We can win the race by disciplining ourselves to be strong in the Lord. Holding fast to our faith is important as we face opposition and persecution. The sin of unbelief will destroy our faith…unless we deliberately resist the enemy and fight the good fight of faith.
In my thinking about fighting a good fight is the fight with Satan and his imps which are roaming around all the earth and trying to get Christians to fall into the paths of sin with them. By FAITH – that is not going to happen to most of us Christians – we are rooted and grounded in the word of GOD and love living for him. When we are knocked down by Satan and his imps – we do not stay down – we have a hand reaching out to help us pick up our bodies and continue on the walk of FAITH with the LORD. Discipline means to have control of our bodies – our thoughts – and the only way to do this is to read GOD’S WORD – not just read but to study and abide by GOD’S WORDS – always be consistent with our lives – LIVE FOR GOD. You and I walking with the LORD know that our weapons are not of this world – but we are great through GOD and we can pull down all of HIS strong holds. We bring every thought under obedience of GOD. I love these verses from the book of Hebrews – lay aside every weight – let us run with patience the race that is set before us – this is where our FAITH in GOD helps us – GOD will be running every race with us and we have the FAITH GOD is always there. We dwell on JESUS who is the maker of our bodies – HE died on the cross for each one of us and just thinks HE is sitting on the right hand of the throne of GOD – this helps us to not be weary and faint not in our minds – we have a race to finish. What a wonderful lesson again – Karen – Thank you so much. We can now run our race and finish our race because of our FAITH in GOD.