Christianity IS a Fight!

Is this part of our counsel to would-be or new believers? We hope so. To enter salvation without this knowledge is to be "set up" for failure. Oh, how we need to warn the believer that though his blessings are immense in Christ, this world is not a friend to grace. Therefore, he will face opposition from many quarters (including his own heart). "To be forewarned is to be forearmed," they say. At church I have often quoted this from Spurgeon:

"Conversion is the first blow in a life-long conflict that will not end til we are in glory."

The Daily Spurgeon for Wednesday addresses itself to the fight and to endurance in it. I invite you to read that. But I will quote one paragraph here:

The believer is commonly compared to a warrior: he is engaged in a great battle, a holy war. Like Joshua, he has to drive out the Canaanites, that have chariots of iron, before he can fully take possession of his inheritance; but it is not the winning of one battle that makes a man a conqueror; nay, though he should devastate one province of his enemy’s territories, yet, if he should be driven out by-and-by, he is beaten in the campaign, and it will yield him but small consolation to win a single battle, or even a dozen battles, if the campaign as a whole should end in his defeat. It is not commencing as though the whole world were to be cleared by one display of fire and sword, but continuing, going from strength to strength, from victory to victory, that makes the man the conqueror of his foe.

May our Leader in battle shore us up in the fight, NOT against each other, but aiming all our spiritual powers against the foe, against sin, the world, and Satan! Victors in Christ.