Fight the good fight of the faith. (I Tim 6:12)
Lord, grant me a greater faith to hold onto your precious promises.
We have been talking about the fact that the Christian life is a fight for holiness. In the last blog I discussed two principles that help us in this fight: 1) Understand that apart from Christ we are sinful and weak. 2) Rest in the work of Christ in us. Today I will focus on a principle that helps us do number 2.
Walk by faith, not by sight (II Cor 5:7). The Christian life is a life of faith. And one of the goals of Satan is to get us to live our lives without faith. That goal is not particularly difficult to achieve, for faith involves realities we can’t see, and distracting us from realities we can’t see is not a complicated task. Just show us something we can see.
God has done a new work in the life of the Christian. In Christ we are dead to sin and alive to God (Rm 6:1-11). In Christ we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified (I Cor 6:11). These are truths we have already discussed, but the only way we can hold onto them is by faith. We do not exactly see with our eyes that we are clean in Christ. But we are. We see it only by faith. Nor do we see with our eyes that we are forgiven in Christ. But we are. We see it only by faith. Faith is how we hold onto what God has done. Faith sees that we are dead to sin. Faith sees that we were washed, sanctified and justified. Faith sees that we are new creatures. Faith sees that we have been perfected forever (Heb 10:14). Faith sees that we are saints in Christ. Faith sees that we are part of the radiant Bride of Christ. Faith sees that we are adopted children of God. Only by faith do we see our identity in Christ. This is crucial because it is this identity that helps us live in holiness.
So let’s get practical. When Satan deals with a genuine believer, he wants that believer to doubt the realities mentioned above, and in order to do this, he simply shows us realities we can see. And one of the biggest realities he shows us is our own sin. He has to be careful in his game, of course. When we are unaware of our sin, he will often do what he can to keep us blinded, but when we know we have sinned, he will use our knowledge against us. If Satan cannot tip the scales to the extreme of ignorance, he will then try to tip them in the opposite extreme and make us despair and doubt what God has done. He is the accuser of the brethren.
So here is what Satan does. Let’s say, I get in an argument with my wife and demean her. Or let’s say a genuine believer gets caught up looking at pornography or finds in his heart an arrogant attitude or fails to help a destitute person or compromises her integrity at work or . . . fill in the blank. With a genuine believer who sees his sin, Satan wants to magnify that sin. He puts it in big bold letters and thrusts it on a billboard in front of our face. That sin is now part of Satan’s marketing strategy for his own agenda. If we then say, “I am washed, I am sanctified, I am justified,” or if we say, “I am clean in Christ” or “I am part of a holy Bride,” Satan immediately puts the billboard before us in neon lights. He then says, “How can you say you are holy in Christ when you just treated your mother that way?” Or “Dead to sin in Christ Jesus? That Scripture must mean something else because you are quite alive to sin.” Or . . . you get the strategy. All he wants to do is make us doubt God’s Word.
It is precisely at this point that the believer has to choose what he or she believes. Do we believe what we seem to see? Or do we believe God’s Word?
We walk by faith, not by sight. If we are God’s people, we must hold onto what God says about our identity, and we must hold onto it even when we sin. Our sin is real. I am not denying it. But what Christ has done in us is also real, and that work has changed us. A bride is no less a bride when she has a fight with her husband. Her standing in the home does not change.
Therefore, we fight Satan by faith, which means we fight the fight for holiness by faith.
This also means that when we sin, we must handle it a certain way. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.” (I Jn 1:9) The first thing we must do is acknowledge our sin. We do not walk in holiness by denying sin. That’s what politicians do, and you see how well it works for them. Honest admission of our sin is crucial, but if we are in Christ, honest admission of our sin must never cripple our souls. If we confess, He forgives. We are now clean. If we are now clean, why can’t we be washed, sanctified, justified, perfected forever, a radiant bride, a saint, a child of God, dead to sin? The sin is gone. The sin is real, but the sin is wiped away. We hold onto forgiveness, sanctification, and all the rest only by faith.
When we let Satan make us doubt who we are in Christ, we hurt our ability to fight. The truths of what God has done are great weapons on our side. If we set them aside, it is like a soldier going into battle without a rifle. He will now charge the hill with his fists. That soldier is no threat to Satan. The billboard worked.
