Fight the Good Fight of Faith, English Edition

 • Fight the Good Fight of Faith: Playing Your Part in God’s Unfolding Drama

Dear Lord, please help me to be quick to hear and listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger (James 1.19). Let the words of my mouth and the thoughts of my heart be acceptable in your sight. Allow me to speak your truth with wisdom in order that all with whom I speak may understand and benefit by your truth. Teach me now in this study as I receive your Word and instruction. I ask for these things in the strong name of Jesus, my Lord and Savior, amen. 1. “Why is there such a difference between what my condition is and what the Bible says my position before God is?” Many new Christians experience a wide gap between what the Scriptures declare regarding their status before God (e.g., as forgiven, as reconciled, as adopted children, as chosen by God), and the way things go in their lives day by day (bouts of doubt, worry, frustration, self-condemnation, and fear). It nearly seems as if the two visions of the Christian life (what the Bible says versus how I feel day by day) are incompatible and contradict one another. As we live out our Christian lives day by day, how should we understand this tension between what the Scriptures say about who we are in Christ versus how we feel about ourselves? 2. “When will I start acting like the person the Bible says I am?” A large part of being an effective disciple of Christ is resolving the conflict internally between who we used to be before we met Christ and who we are now that we have believed . Oftentimes, who we used to be seems to be a stronger, more realistic, and more authentic view of ourselves than what the Bible or our teachers and pastors say about us. How can a new Christian identify with the texts and declarations of the Bible even when it appears that who we used to be is our more “natural” self, the “me” we feel most comfortable with, and seems to be most true about us? 3. “I’ll just stay home and walk with the Lord by myself.” On one occasion a new adult believer who had recently come out of the drug culture accepted Christ, and began his journey of living a new life in Christ. The problem, however, is that he felt dramatically awkward in the presence of other Christians, largely because of the lifestyle that he had lived so long on the streets – harming his body, his family, and his relationships with others. Frustrated and exhausted, one day he exclaimed, “That’s it! I just don’t think I can live my Christian life with the people at church. They are good people and all, but they just can’t get where I’m coming from right now. I think I want to keep walking with Christ, but I’ll just stay at home, and I’ll walk with the Lord by

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