“FIGHTING FOR OR FIGHTING FROM?”
By: J.FARRELL FISHER, AUGUST 21-23, 2017
It’s really astounding to me that some immature believers sincerely believe they are the “called” to fight the good fight of faith “in Christ’s place” – and if that is their ‘frame of reference’ in living out their calling as a believer, be assured, they are greatly deceived!
In Matthew 16:21-25 we find Christ Jesus telling His disciples about His coming death. It says: From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”
But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” Then Jesus said TO HIS DISCIPLES, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”
In our modern-day there are many who feel by ‘joining a church’ that they are ‘fighting for’ the honor of Christ, but, sadly, that attitude, that frame of reference about discipleship is foreign to what Jesus taught and explained by His life journey. The “fellowship of believers” in and through the church fellowship is vitally important! “Forsake not the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is!” But when it comes to “serving the Lord” the disciples were “discipled” not to “fight for” Christ but to “fight from” Him!
In 2 Corinthians 1:9 Paul wrote: “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, THAT WE SHOULD NOT TRUST IN OURSELVES but in God who raises the dead…!” He said later in 2 Corinthians 2:14-17, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us DIFFUSES the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as from God, we speak in the sight of God in Christ.”
The “triumph” in the walk and witnessing of redemptive faith is not well-planned, fleshly best, but is ‘willful choice daily’ to be dead to the old man and allowing Resurrected Jesus to have an available vessel in and through which He expresses Himself, or a ‘temple’ yielded to His abiding Presence in and through which He chooses to validate Himself in a passionate, Spirit-anointed witness through YOU! Our lives are the ‘book-covering’ while Christ Jesus is the content! This is why Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:2-6,
“You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an EPISTLE OF CHRIST, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.”
“Fighting For” is the absence of the sentence of death in ourselves, “Fighting For” is ‘peddling the word of God’, “Fighting For” is emitting the spirit of fleshly death at its best, “Fighting For” is ‘the aroma of death leading to death’, and, sadly, ensuring it, “Fighting For” is ‘church-mentality’ void of the ink of the Spirit of God, “Fighting For” is human self-sufficiency written with imitation ink and void of the Spirit who, yes, gives life.
“Fighting For” is ‘walking in craftiness’, ‘handling the word of God deceitfully’, and sharing with others a ‘veiled gospel’, the ‘god of this age’ blinding unbelievers and choking believers lest the glory of Christ would shine through them!
“Fighting For” is taking pride in one’s ‘earthen vessel’, even treasuring it unwittingly, wanting the “power” to be the best of flesh rather than the very power of God! “Fighting For” is the immature believer, undiscipled, who is “restricted by his/her own affections”, not the heart of the Indwelling Christ beating within them!
In 2 Corinthians 10:1-6 Paul reminds the Corinthian believers and us of where our “strength” in fighting the good fight of faith comes from, or more clearly, “IN WHOM”! He said, “Now I, Paul, myself am pleading with you by the meekness and gentleness OF CHRIST – who in presence am lowly among you, but being absent am bold toward you.
But I beg you that when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal (or ‘fleshly’) but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.”
Paul the Apostle didn’t choose to live by the “best effort” philosophy of some immature disciples in their spiritual walks, by ‘arming’ himself with the best human invented war weapons, or by his own invention of ‘flesh-minded’ rhetorical or philosophical reasoning, stating strongly, anointed in the Spirit, in Ephesians 6:10-18,
“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having gird your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.”
Tell me about your prayer ministry from the “best efforts” of your flesh OR do you pray resting in the Christ within and appropriating the POWER of HIS MIGHT? We do face “the wiles of the devil”, but THERE IS THE WHOLE ARMOR OF GOD, not your ‘fleshly desires’ to be an overcomer by YOUR “self-determination”! It’s “your best”, which means you’re “whipped”, or Christ Jesus in you being YOUR “more than conqueror Victor” over the world, the flesh, or Satan himself!
“Fighting For or Fighting From”? Do you understand how Holy God desires to have available “vessels” through which He is able to be Himself and touch individual lives, needs, and purposes THROUGH YOU? Have you overlooked, denied, or never known the eternal Truth? “CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY”? In YOUR spiritual journey, day by day, is it with the TRUTH? The TRUTH? 2 Corinthians 2:14 says, “Now thanks be to God who ALWAYS leads us in triumph in Christ, AND THROUGH US diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.” I’d say that that is “Living In” and “Fighting From”, not ‘living trying’ but Living Triumphant, Fighting From His abiding presence within!
In 1 Peter 4:2 Peter challenges all believers “that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God.” If God says, and He does, “I have chosen you”, dare we congratulate God on His wisdom for being able to discern our ‘potential’, or is it His grace, mercy, and love, willing to use our ‘will-less awareness’ of “Why me?” Almighty God, the Faithful Creator, the Loving Father, the Discerning Genius of spiritual matters, desires the “empty” vessels that He fills with Holy Presence, or as Oswald Chambers wrote: “Paul’s secret joy was that God took him, a red-handed rebel against Jesus Christ, and made him a captive, and now that is all he is here for,” and, praise God, you learn you’re a cleansed vessel by the blood of the Lamb, through which Loving God, obedient Son, and the Holy Spirit, touches your world around you with Christ’s Presence released through you!
If God sovereignly chose you before the foundation of our world, and He did, was He interested in ‘robots’ or rescued, renewed, re-born sons and daughters, washed in the blood of the Lamb and available to all He desires to be and to do in you and through you? He crucified your ‘old life’, and by grace and mercy and love, raises it up as He resurrected Jesus, “giving us a future and a hope”, and that is, “a new, useful vessel” in which the Resurrected, Reigning Christ is able to extend Himself and express His love for all of sinful, fallen, alienated and separated humanity, yes, in need of the Savior and Deliverer from Satan’s grasp!
Natural men and women have the opportunity of witnessing SUPERNATURAL, DIVINE PRESENCE making their bodies the “Holy Temples” of Resurrection Presence! Do you fully understand or grasp the reality of God as the “Faithful Creator”? Examine the undeniable physical cosmos and its glory – is its future firmly in the hands of its Creator? If so, in the spiritual realm of a “new-born Life”, do we fret or faith His faithfulness in fulfilling the work He started within us? Why do doubts and fears even arise? Is it from demonic influences of, “Has God really said?”, or worldly philosophies that major on man’s genius of “flesh abilities”, or the ‘flesh-nature’ itself that so wants ‘fleshly advancement’ apart from the grace and power and provision of God “in Christ”?
In Psalm 71:1-2 the psalmist was a realist concerning true awareness of the victorious status of one “fighting for” or “fighting from”. He said: “In You, O lord, I put my trust; let me never be put to shame. Deliver me in YOUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, and cause me to escape; incline Your ear to me, and save me.” But have YOU decided it’s YOUR “best effort”, it’s YOUR “self-determination”, or your “confidence” in your own abilities that makes the difference in your journey of the ‘flesh’ or the Spirit?
How is it that “famous Christians” became famous? Do YOU understand that “famous Christians” never advanced their personal abilities, but they saw their “ordinariness” in Kingdom Living to be authored by the Holy Spirit of God? What does Matthew 6:33 tell us? “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” So, if God clothes the lilies of the field, can He cloth you in Kingdom ministry, not “your best”, but His faithful provision of the Christ within you as His hope of glory for you and through you?
Religions abound worldwide, but where, in the Word, did Holy God ever endorse fallen men’s devotion to their own religious ideals? Yes, it was not only for fallen humanity that Christ Jesus came to sacrifice His life for their reconciliation to God, but to replace ‘religious ideals’ with the “redemption through the blood of the Lamb of God”, thus through repentance toward God and faith in Christ’s “finished work” at the Cross, men and women, boys and girls, would learn to live by the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ Jesus! No other way exists before the throne of Holy God!
B.B. McKinney and Hattie Bell Allen wrote the Hymn, “Christ for the Whole Wide World!” It says: “Christ for the whole wide world! Our task has just begun, For millions wait in every land The message of God’s Son. Shall they be left in sin, To die without His Word, Without the Savior Jesus Christ, Because they never heard?
Christ for the whole wide world! His message must be sent To millions dying in their sin To call them to repent. Christ Jesus died to save, But they can never know Until we bring our gifts of love And bid His heralds go!
Christ for the whole wide world! His heralds will proclaim Salvation for men everywhere in Jesus’ blessed name. And we who cannot go To bear His tidings far Will pray for those who take the Word – And witness where we are.
We will give, we will pray, We will witness every day, That the millions of the whole wide world May know our Savior’s love.”
Is that YOUR song OR do YOU no longer sing?