Dear Weekly Readers! God’s Blessings to you this week!
This week I am asking for your prayers. By the time you get this, I will be with a team on the other side of the world, Lord willing! Pray that God would bless this trip and that His Word would be proclaimed in truth and purity! Hopefully I will be able to post the Diner from where I am, but the time will be very short as we have so much scheduled for the 3 weeks that we will be there! This week our article is by a guest pastor!
May God Bless your week! John R.
THE FIGHT OF FAITH
Dear brothers and sisters in faith,
God’s Peace!
I am sensing within my spirit a burden that I believe is from the Lord, and He is moving me to tell it. The message from the Lord concerns our fight of faith. What I believe concerns our Lord, and ought to concern us, as well, is the fact that many seem to be afraid to confess their faith; both in word and deed.
There are several verses of Scripture the Lord has joined together in my mind that have to do with the confession of our faith. The first is from Paul’s first epistle to Timothy. We read in 1 Tim. 6:12 where Paul gives the following counsel to his young co-worker: “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and have professed a good profession before many witnesses.”
The reason this counsel was so timely is the context surrounding that verse. The way of life by which Timothy was surrounded was vile, harsh, ungodly, self-centered, self-serving, and in every other way anti-Christian. It is in the midst of this kind of society, Paul was exhorting Timothy to stand strong in the faith. And every one of us knows this is an accurate description of our own society today. No matter what country in which you live the spirit of antichrist is on the rise.
We may not feel the impact of this growing, deepening, strengthening anti-Christian worldview until it begins to impact our own cities, towns, schools, homes, and children. Not long ago at a Bible study in our local congregation, the pastor was saying how many of the young people in the congregation do not dare to confess their faith because of ridicule and rejection from other classmates, and even the class teacher.
That comment brought to my mind two other passages from Scripture. The first is from Luke 18:8 that reads, in part, “…when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” The context of this saying of our Lord is within the parable of the importunate woman whose determination to be avenged of her adversary kept her pleading with the unjust judge until her helped her. Our Lord’s comment at the end of this parable ought to be taken seriously. I believe what God is saying to us through this Holy Spirit inspired Word is for us to not give in to our foe! No matter how much we must suffer from an unbelieving world, let us now cower in fear before them but unceasingly cry unto the Lord to give us boldness and courage.
We are to do this not for our sake; not that we would get some relief or comfort. Rather we do it so that the Lord’s will would prevail; so that the kingdom of God, the kingdom of true light, will begin to transform the lives of those who are opposed to Christ. And it is only as we are “salt” and “light” (Matt. 5:13,14) can we be the vessels through whom Christ can do His transforming work in this world.
The second passage of Scripture the Lord brought to my mind is from Mt. 11:12—“…from the days of John and Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.” I honestly have not understood this verse until now. The larger context within which this verse is placed is preceded by the ministry of John and Baptist and succeeded by the ministry of Christ. The point our Lord was making is that both the ministry of repentance and forgiveness is not only necessary but essential. What is meant by “violence” and “violent” in this context is the boldness and courage that is necessary to confront hardness of heart of the “hearers”; not merely the hearers of this parable, but the hearers of our own day. The “violence” or “courage” we need is not the arm of flesh, but the power of the love of God.
We have no choice, as disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, but to become more aggressive, courageous, and determined to bring to bear upon our world the truth of the Gospel. Because we know that on the day of judgment every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father,(Phil. 2:10, 11), let us bodly, lovingly, faithfully, and consistently love our “enemies” that they may be drawn to Christ and humble themselves in repentance and faith now in the time of grace when they can be blessed with the assurance of forgiveness, so that when they bow before the Lord on that Final Day, they will bow, not in fear, but in adoration and praise to Him, the Lamb of God who takes away our sins!
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