I have grown to appreciate that reality about following Jesus in an increasing way as the years have passed. My own need to win the battle in my mind and heart has sensitized me to this truth. So has my observation of others who seem to have failed to engage in the fight with the weapons Christians have been provided.
A few years ago I was able to visit with a friend whom I had heard no longer believed the faith he had long confessed. The two of us spoke while surrounded by many others, so the occasion did not provide me an opportunity to speak at length. After he explained his departure from following Christ, I said something like this: "I won't say a lot at this point, but I believe I should say this: 'We have to fight if we are going to continue to follow Jesus.'"
A phrase in the passage I preached on Sunday -- I Corinthians 15:1-11 -- points to this kind of combat. In the first two verses, the apostle Paul wrote, "Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain."
Paul was saying the fact a Christian holds "fast the word" he preached -- the gospel, in other words -- is evidence that person's profession of faith was not false.
This is certainly not the only such warning in the New Testament. Paul wrote to the Colossian Christians, "He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach -- if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard" (Col. 1:22-23a).
These texts testify to this reality: True faith results in continuing to believe the gospel, continuing to trust in Jesus, to the end. But that perseverance in the faith is not without opposition. We must recognize the conflict we entered when Christ purchased us for Himself. The war is real, and it has no conscientious objectors who will survive. We must fight.
(Part 2 will address how we are to wage this battle.)
-- Photo by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash
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