God tells us through the Apostle Paul in 1Timothy 6:12(NLT), “Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have confessed so well before many witnesses.” This is powerful encouragement and instruction. To fight is to contend. It’s to assert effort and energy to overcome. The image of contending is a very good one to describe the battlefield of faith, because during our sojourn on earth, the good fight of faith takes place in our own minds.
One of the most profound pieces of knowledge that God gives us about faith can be found in Romans 10:17(NKJV). It tells us, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Another profound piece of knowledge is God’s definition of faith in Hebrews 11:1(NKJV). This verse states, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” God tells us that faith is a spiritual substance, and this means that faith has matter. It has a tangible presence, and Romans 10:17 states that faith comes wherever the truth is heard and believed. As believers, we should pray that we are doing all that God requires to make sure that faith comes. We should also remain committed to the mental fight necessary to make sure that faith is too comfortable to ever leave.
Relationship is very important to God, and it is sums up the reason for our existence. Life is given by God to live in relationship with Him through the Lord Jesus Christ. Our trust in Him is the bases on which our relationship is maintained. Hebrews 11:6 tells us that we cannot please Him without faith, that we must believe that He exists and that He is a Rewarder to those who love and diligently seek Him. We must wholeheartedly have faith that He loved us so much that He gave His Son as a sacrifice for our sins, and He raised His Son from the dead.
Believing in God’s truth, power, and love is accomplished with our hearts and minds, and again, the mind is the battlefield of faith. We are bombarded with distractions and information, and many of us allow these things to take up too much space in our minds. God has given us free-will choice. We choose what we will allow in, and God warns us to be exceedingly careful about this. The body is a vessel that houses our human spirit and soul, but the body itself has no means to believe or think without the facility of the human mind and will. The mind and will are a part of your spirit being, and without them, the brain and heart are just organs. So, we can see why God commands us in Ephesians 4:23(ESV) to “be renewed in the spirit of your minds”, which means to change the way we think so that our thoughts are aligned with the mind of Christ. This is extremely important to building faith.
The intimacy of prayer
Sometimes, we forget that God has given us prayer as an intimate way of communicating with Him. In Philippians 4:6(NLT), He instructs us, “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.” Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, made this level of intimate prayer available through the New Covenant we now have with God.
The Old Covenant was the Mosaic law. It was the Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. Exodus 34:29-32(NLT) says, “29 When Moses came down Mount Sinai carrying the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant, he wasn’t aware that his face had become radiant because he had spoken to the LORD. 30 So when Aaron and the people of Israel saw the radiance of Moses’ face, they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called out to them and asked Aaron and all the leaders of the community to come over, and he talked with them. 32 Then all the people of Israel approached him, and Moses gave them all the instructions the LORD had given him on Mount Sinai.”(*see note) God’s law is perfect, and He gave it to His people living during Old Testament times to instruct them and us about His righteousness, but the law’s purpose was not to save them. Salvation is a gift of God’s grace through the Lord Jesus Christ, and it was only available after his sacrifice and resurrection.
Romans 8:3(NLT) tells us, “The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.” Through our precious Lord and Savior, God took care of the sin issue forever. He sent Jesus Christ to the earth on a mission, and he completed it perfectly, without flaw. Because of this, we can have the relationship—the friendship and fellowship that our Heavenly Father always wanted.
Ephesians 2:19 declares that we are no longer strangers and foreigners to God. Because of the sacrifice of Christ, we are citizens of God’s Kingdom and God’s holy people. We are members of God’s family and share an inheritance with His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:20-21(NLT) states, “20 Together, we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. 21 We are carefully joined together in him, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.” Because of our union with Christ, God lives in us through His precious Holy Spirit. This is the closeness and intimacy He desires. He is never far from us, but so close that our prayers are heard before our mouths utter them. He tells us in 1Thessalonians 5:17 to pray without ceasing. This gives us confidence that He wants to hear our prayers, and He’s willing and able to bless us as we continue to draw close to God in prayer with gratitude and faith.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
“Your Body is God’s Temple”, written for Springfield Fellowship © 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
*Exodus 34:29-32 is referencing the second set of stone tablets on which God wrote the Ten Commandments. After receiving the first set from God and coming off the mountain to witness the sin of the Israelites, Moses destroyed the first set.