Fight the Good Fight

Scripture

Our verse for today comes from 1 Timothy 6:12, ” Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. “

Background

We all could use some encouragement, couldn’t we? I was reading over some kind words from a friend not too long ago, and those sincere expressions of support and appreciation warmed my soul and lifted my spirits in a powerful way. They also steered me back in a direction that I needed to go. And that’s a blessing we all need from time to time, too, isn’t it? I was picturing a young man, say 21 or 30 or 35 years old, working in a warehouse somewhere. Maybe he finished high school, but he’s grossly underachieving while driving a forklift or stacking boxes all day for ten bucks an hour. Somewhere along the way he stopped caring about his future or hoping for something grand, and one menial job led to another, and then to another. The jobs themselves were no disgrace, mind you, for the anonymous work of so many laborers is necessary and to be respected. But the man I pictured had no calling, no hope, no purpose, and no future. That’s a man who’s in need.

Application

Satan wants God’s children to experience that sort of despair. He wants our energy and attention to feel limited and futile. He wants us to seem lost and wonder why and what if. He tries to get us to think about what we aren’t and what everyone else is. But this is a time of encouragement, and God has plenty of that for us. Our days need not drone on one after another. We have a purpose, and not only that, we have a good purpose. It is the good fight of faith. We also have something to hold on to, and it’s not temporal like a weekly paycheck or a weekend spent forgetting about our mindless job. It’s eternal, and it’s life. And it comes with the calling we have from God. As a man or woman of God, we are reminded that our fight is good, our life eternal, and our encouragement is God. He reminds us of that in order to encourage us to carry on. There are more witnesses who need to hear, and to see. So receive His encouragement, whether in a warehouse or someplace more glorified. He is right there with you.

Charge

As we seek Him today, rejoice that you are a child of God, that your fight is good, and your life is in Him. Don’t listen to the lies that Satan would have you hear.