Fight the Good Fight of Faith, English Edition

Lesson : The Enlistment We Make • 

Lord repeatedly to save them again and again. They not only lack all assurance that their first confession of Christ “took,” but they also wonder if the whole thing was made up in their minds in the first place. How does your study of the biblical texts above help you resolve this kind of gnawing, ongoing doubt? How do they help a new believer know that they are saved, in spite of how they might feel on any given day (see 1 John 5.11-13)? 3. “It’s amazing. Now that I’m saved by grace, I can do whatever I want. I’m free!” On one occasion, a new believer was exposed to what the Bible said about grace, Christ’s righteousness, and eternal life. Rather than making him humble and grateful, he mistakenly twisted his knowl edge into prideful arrogance. He began sharing with his friends, “Since God loves us and saves us by his grace, we don’t have to worry about how we live. Whatever we do, he will forgive us, and accept us, not on the basis of what we do, but because of what Jesus did!” How is this new brother in Christ misunderstanding how we should live, now that we have been saved by Christ? What is the true understanding of how we should now live? One of the first and most meaningful things that a believer can and must do in beginning their journey into the Story of God is to realize that they are now combatants in the greatest cosmic fight of all time. Honestly, no thunder rolled when we accepted Christ (at least, not normally!) Everything can seem as it was. The truth is, though, everything has changed. We have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness, forgiven of all our transgression, adopted into God’s family, and enlisted into God’s fighting force for the Kingdom! We are brand new creations in Christ; the old has passed away and the new has come (2 Cor. 5.17). Determine right now to adopt a fighting spirit, to depend on the Holy Spirit for strength, to pray to the Lord for help each day as you walk with Christ, and to stand your ground in the battles for your mind, your heart, and your soul. God has promised to give you the victory (1 Cor. 15.57), because greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world (1 John 4.4). You now belong to the Lord, and you do not have to identify with your old life with its insecurities, lies, and deceptions. You are a new child of God in Christ, and you must deliberately start to act, talk, and think like that new person. Be patient with yourself; it will take patience and time to learn God’s new ways, and to become the new person that he wants you to be. Ask God for help to live into this new identity, this new self that God has made, set free from the deceitful lusts of the past, renewed in the spirit of your mind, and now liberated to live as a new person with a different

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