I started fighting around the age of one and it was mainly with my brother over toys. My first real fight came when I was in the 6th grade and it was over a girl and I returned to school the next day with a pretty good shiner. Some are taught how to fight early in life. Parents take their children to gyms to learn karate or boxing, and personally I don’t have a problem with that, however, most are never taught how to fight spiritually. Most Christians don’t know how to fight. We are non-violent people who are taught to share God’s love and kindness to others even when being treated unfairly or harshly. But we still need to learn how to fight. The apostle Paul said to Timothy, “I have fought the good fight.”. 2 Timothy 4:7. Paul understood that being spiritually passive only leads to a defeated life. Paul understood that turning the other cheek was a way to witness but had nothing to do with fighting spiritually. So please remember this, if you are going to live a victorious life in Christ, you must learn to fight. You may be aggressive physically and verbally, but are you aggressive spiritually? Most likely your Christian life suffers today because you have not learned to fight for it, me too! One of the fundamentals of fighting spiritually is defending yourself. Do you know how to cover yourself? The enemy will never stop throwing the knockout punches at you and we get hit and knocked down from time to time, but do we get back up swinging or do we go to our corner and sulk over what just happened? To fight to win you must defend and cover yourself. There is a shield called faith. There is a helmet called salvation and there is a breastplate called righteousness. You must cover yourself with Christ. (Ephesians 6:10-18). Every time you go to God in prayer, you are covering yourself. Yes, God fights for us and covers us, but He expects you to put on the fighting gear.
Hopefully, this blog is catching you between rounds and before you go back out there you need this information because it can turn the fight into your favor. To fight to win you must fight yourself. I can tell you the devil gets more credit for attacking us than he deserves. Many times it’s just your own emotions, mind, and attitude that wrestle you to the ground and not the devil. It’s the old nature wanting to reclaim your body and take over, so you have to fight yourself. We are our own worst enemy because most of us didn’t grow up being taught how to fight against ourselves or that we even needed to. How do you fight yourself? Start by covering up with prayer and then wrestle your mind, emotions, and attitude. God put a fighter in you called the Holy Spirit to fight against what’s trying to take you down and make you a non-factor in the kingdom of God. After you cover up with a prayer to God, you must open your mouth. Do you hear that? Open your mouth and speak to yourself. You may never do it and if you don’t, you will always get spiritually beat down. But a day may come the devil will hate to see when something rises up in you and you start opening your mouth and speaking the victory over yourself. I know you are thinking, I don’t know what to say. Well, why not say, ‘I am not going down today. I’m going to stand today. I’ve got power inside of me that is so much greater than my enemy.” This is what spiritual fighting sounds like. Say this, “Greater is He who is in me than everything coming against me. I am victorious in Jesus. I am a more than a conqueror through Christ who loves me.”
God saved you to fight the good fight. It’s a good fight because it’s for your faith and God’s glory. It’s a good fight because those around you will always benefit from your victory. It’s a good fight because it shows you are not blind to the enemy you face. What’s wrong with your mouth? You know how to use it against the one who cut you off in traffic and you open it up against your coworker who said something about you, so start using it in the spiritual fight. When you don’t feel like fighting, that’s when you need to open your mouth and let the sword of truth come out and fight. Fight on the way to work. Turn that radio off and fight. Fight when you are home alone. Fight when you start sinking mentally and emotionally, even if you have to go and find a quiet place to be alone. It won’t be very long and you’ll find yourself in a fight, so start today fighting spiritually. Practice sparring by speaking the truth of scripture out loud.