Fight The Good Fight of Faith

Paul Defends His Ministry

2Co 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh

2Co 10:4 (for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds),

2Co 10:5 casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ;

2Co 10:1 (1-12) Now, I myself, Paul, beg of you, please, through the meekness and sweet reasonableness of the Christ, who indeed in personal appearance am grovelling, slavish, mean-spirited among you, but being absent, am of good courage toward you, I beg of you, please, that when I am present, I may not be courageous with the confidence with which I am counting on myself to be bold toward certain who take account of us as ordering our behavior in accordance with mere human considerations. For, though we are ordering our behavior in the sphere, of human experience, not in accordance with mere human considerations are we waging warfare, for the weapons of our warfare are not human but mighty in God's sight, resulting in the demolition of fortresses, demolishing reasonings and every haughty mental elevation which lifts itself up against the experiential knowledge of God, and leading captive every thought into the obedience to the Christ, and being in readiness to discipline every careless, apathetic hearing of and disobedience to the Word when your obedience shall be fulfilled. You are in the habit of looking at external appearance. If, as is the case, anyone has fully persuaded himself that he is Christ's, let him be considering this again with himself, that just as he himself belongs to Christ, so also do we. For, even if I should boast somewhat more abundantly concerning our authority which the Lord gave me for your building up and not for your casting down, I shall not be put to shame, in order that I may not seem as if I would make you afraid by my letters, because his letters, indeed, they say, are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak and his discourse of no account. Let such a one take into account this fact that the kind of person we are in our discourse through our letters when we are absent, such are we also in action when we are present. For we are not daring to judge ourselves worthy to be among nor compare ourselves with certain ones of those who are commending themselves. But they themselves, measuring and comparing themselves with themselves, are without understanding.

2Co 10:13 (13-18) But, as for us, we will not boast without a proper standard of measurement but in accordance with the measure of the measuring rule which God apportioned to us as a measuring unit, one that reaches even up to you. For we did not extend ourselves beyond the prescribed limit as though we did not reach as far as to you, for we came as far as to you in announcing the good news about the Christ, not boasting without a proper standard of measurement, namely, not in other men's labors, but having hope that as your faith grows, we may be increased among you in accordance with our measuring rule, resulting in a superabundance, with a view to proclaiming the good news in the regions beyond you, not boasting ourselves in another's field of activity with reference to the things made ready. But he who boasts, let him be boasting in the Lord, for not he who recommends himself, that one is accepted after having been put to the test, but he whom the Lord recommends, that one has His stamp of approval placed upon him, that approval being based upon the fact that the approved one has met the test satisfactorily.

God I’d looking for people who refuse to give up. We are more than a Conqueror through Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour Who strengthens us.

FACED WITH SIN

Faced with Sin

There are some people who take sin lightly—it's kind of a trendy thing today. There are lots of churches and lots of churchgoers who are never really confronted by the wretchedness of their own hearts and the sinfulness of their own sin.

You cannot take sin lightly if you read Isaiah 53, because it was your sin and my sin that put Christ on the cross. How can you treat lightly what he suffered?

If you look at the cross, you understand the sinfulness of sin.

He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised or crushed for our iniquities. The divine chastening, the wrath of God was put on him for our well-being. All we, like sheep, have gone astray, but God has laid on him the iniquity of us all. How can that be a light thing?

Your Sin in Fullness

All your sins—if you put your trust in Christ—were laid on Jesus Christ. In those hours of darkness on the cross, after which he cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?,” he absorbed all the divine wrath, all the sins of all the people who would ever believe through all of human history.

The Gospel according to God

The Gospel according to God

John MacArthur

Pastor MacArthur walks readers through the prophecy of the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 verse by verse, pointing readers to the passage’s fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

You might say, “How could he have possibly have absorbed all the wrath for all the sins of all those people?” It’s because he was an infinite person. He could absorb an infinite amount of divine fury. That’s why everything went black and dark for those hours.

If you look at the cross, you understand the sinfulness of sin. You can’t make light of it when you see it in that fashion.

Strength For All Things!

Php 4:12-13.     I know how to be abased and live humbly in straitened circumstances, and I know also how to enjoy plenty and live in abundance. I have learned in any and all circumstances the secret of facing every situation, whether well-fed or going hungry, having a sufficiency and enough to spare or going without and being in want.

I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me!    [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency].

4:12-13.       Paul knew how to be abased, that is, by not having the bare necessities of life; and he also knew how to abound, that is, by having more given to him at a particular time than his immediate needs required. Everywhere and in all things he had learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. How had the apostle learned such a lesson? Simply in this way: he was confident that he was in the will of God. He knew that wherever he was, or in whatever circumstances he found himself, he was there by divine appointment. If he was hungry, it was because God wanted him to be hungry. If he was full, it was because his Lord had so planned it. Busily and faithfully engaged in the service of his King, he could say, “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight.”

     Then the apostle adds the words which have been a puzzle to many: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”Could he possibly mean this literally? Did the apostle really believe that there was nothing he could not do? The answer is this: When the Apostle Paul said that he could do all things, he meant all things which were God's will for him to do. He had learned that the Lord's commands are the Lord's enablements. He knew that God would never call on him to accomplish some task without giving the necessary grace. All things probably applies not so much to great feats of daring as to great privations and hungerings.

and more on this topic;

Philippians 4:12.   I know both how to be abased,.... Or "humbled"; to be treated with indignity and contempt, to be trampled upon by man, to suffer hardships and distress, to be in a very mean and low condition, to work with his own hands, and minister to his own and the necessities of others in that way; yea, to be in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, and have no certain dwelling place; and he knew how to behave under all this; not to be depressed and cast down, or to fret, repine, and murmur:

and I know how to abound; or "to excel"; to be in the esteem of men, and to have an affluence of the things of this world, and how to behave in the midst of plenty; so as not to be lifted up, to be proud and haughty, and injurious to fellow creatures; so as not to abuse the good things of life; and so as to use them to the honour of God, the interest of religion, and the good of fellow creatures, and fellow Christians:

every where; whether among Jews or Gentiles, at Jerusalem or at Rome, or at whatsoever place; or as the Arabic version renders it, "every time": always, in every season, whether of adversity or prosperity:

and in all things; in all circumstances of life:

I am instructed; or "initiated", as he was by the Gospel; and, ever since he embraced it, was taught this lesson of contentment, and inured to the exercise of it, and was trained up and instructed how to behave himself in the different changes and vicissitudes he came into:

both to be full, and to be hungry; to know what it was to have plenty and want, to have a full meal and to want one, and be almost starved and famished, and how to conduct under such different circumstances:

both to abound and to suffer need; which the apostle repeats for confirmation sake; and the whole of what he here says is an explanation of the lesson of contentment he had learned; and the knowledge he speaks of was not speculative but experimental, and lay not merely in theory, but in practice; and now lest he should be thought guilty of arrogance, and to ascribe too much to himself, he in Php 4:13 attributes all to the power and grace of Christ.

Philippians 4:13.      I can do all things,.... Which must not be understood in the greatest latitude, and without any limitation; for the apostle was not omnipotent, either in himself, or by the power of Christ; nor could he do all things that Christ could do; but it must be restrained to the subject matter treated of: the sense is, that he could be content in every state, and could know how to behave himself in adversity and prosperity, amidst both poverty and plenty; yea, it may be extended to all the duties incumbent on him both as a Christian and as an apostle, as to exercise a conscience void of offence towards God and men; to take the care of all the churches; to labour more abundantly than others in preaching the Gospel; and to bear all afflictions, reproaches, and persecutions for the sake of it; yea, he could willingly and cheerfully endure the most cruel and torturing death for the sake of Christ: all these things he could do, not in his own strength, for no man was more conscious of his own weakness than he was, or knew more of the impotency of human nature; and therefore always directed others to be strong in the Lord, and in, the power of his might, and in the grace that is in Christ, on which he himself always depended, and by which he did what he did; as he adds here,

through Christ which strengtheneth me. The Vulgate Latin and Ethiopic versions leave out the word "Christ", and only read "him"; and so the Alexandrian copy and others; but intend Christ as those that express it: strength to perform duty and to bear sufferings is in Christ, and which he communicates to his people; he strengthens them with strength in their souls, internally, as the word here used signifies; by virtue of which they can do whatever he enjoins them or calls them to, though without him they can do nothing.