One of the greatest attractions of Christianity to me is its sheer absurdity. I love all those crazy sayings in the New Testament—which, incidentally, turn out to be literally true—about how fools and illiterates and children understand what Jesus was talking about better than the wise:, the learned, and the venerable; about how the poor, not the rich, are blessed, the meek, not the arrogant, inherit the earth, and the pure in heart, not the strong in mind, see God.
~Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990)
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved His appearing.
~ paul, The Least of the Apostles, to young Timothy in 2 Timothy 4
Oh beloved, it is true. There is an epic and final battle in our belief.
Belief.
Everything in us screams out that we must now:
Pick up the pace
Try harder
Be more righteous
Please G_d with our lives
Stop being bad
And on and on and on and on….
And these things are true. But, we can miss the path to them entirely so very easily. And this is were the final battle begins. And it is a battle that simply cannot be won. It is a battle that must be lost for us to even think about actually becoming victorious in any real sense.
The vestiges of self in a believer assert loudly that we must somehow control our behavior to stay within the good grace that He has poured out into our lives. But the problem with self is that it is – by its very nature – completely, absolutely and profoundly unable to control its own behavior. And it will, in fact, completely, and absolutely and profoundly fail in any attempts to be truly good.
And this is very good news.
Can we see it? The good fight that Paul was waging was that we might put on the righteousness of G_d by believing in Him – and Him alone. And in this belief, coming to a place where G_d Himself even lives out His righteousness in us and through us continually.
It was not the fight to be good.
It was not the fight against a corrupt culture and world.
And it certainly was not a fight against a broken political system.
It WAS the fight against the old man within him that wanted to assert its wants and lusts and misdirected thoughts that it could somehow be good enough for a blindingly perfect and holy G_d. And this is the fight that Paul, by Grace alone, won.
Have no doubt friends. It is significantly easier to take up the battle against some cultural shortfall than it is to slay this one last real dragon. And this is why so many Christians never really are able to really win any real fight in their lives. For, dying to self is this one last battle. It is a final, and hyper-violent act of obedience. However, once this battle is won, victory is assured on every front – in every theater of operations – from now on.
Fight on believer.
