The Fight
For the past several weeks I have been preaching through a series on spiritual warfare. It is my belief that the majority of people who call themselves Christ-followers do not take seriously the fight that exists for each one of us. This is a fight for us to live a holy life, a Christ-like life. Each day we are tempted and each day we war against our old flesh as it tries to pull us away from holiness and into sin. The problem is not that we think sin is ok. The problem is that we don’t see the magnitude of our sin. We like to excuse away sin with the statement, “no one is perfect” instead of seeing the reality of our sin as something that is a slap in the face to God. The question then becomes, why don’t we see the reality of our sin? I have come to the conclusion that we don’t see the reality of our sin because we don’t know the One whom our sin offends. When I say “know” I’m not referring to knowing the Lord in a salvation sense. I am referring to knowing the Lord in the sense of developing the relationship that we have with Him. It seems that many Christians are satisfied with meeting the Lord without ever pouring their lives into getting to know Him.
The breakdown I think is that getting to know the Lord takes work and discipline, both of which are things that we tend to shy away from. In the age of devotional books it seems that fewer Christians are eager to dive into God’s word for in-depth study in order to know God and how he works in the world. Few Christians are willing to put in the work and discipline that it takes to learn the doctrines of the faith. Unfortunately, it is through those things that we are able to fight for holiness in this life. We must know what we believe and why. We must discipline ourselves to study God’s word. We can no longer afford to keep our brains in the classroom or office and out of our faith. C.S. Lewis said, “God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you, you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all.”
The call that is on my life and yours if you are a Christ-follower is a holy calling. It is a calling to be holy as He is holy. It is a calling to pursue Christ-likeness in lifestyle. This is the calling that we are fighting for each day. Are you ready to fight for holiness in your life? The only way that we have a chance in this fight is to fervently study God’s word to know Him and to apply our brains to actually learn what it is that we believe. Yes, it will take discipline and it will take work but in the end as you immerse yourself in the Bible and get to know God you will begin to understand that it is through knowing Him that we will experience joy to the full in this life. I hope that you make the choice to fight for holiness and by doing so experience the joy of the Lord.
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