Fight the Good Fight of Faith

1 Timothy 6:12 says, “Fight the good fight of faith.” We toss that phrase around so casually in church life, but half the time we forget that our lives really are a fight. And the good fight of faith isn’t some poetic slogan. It’s the fight you actually win.

We’ve built this mentality in the body of Christ that if we just “hang in there long enough,” victory will magically appear. But if you or I stepped into a boxing ring with Mike Tyson and tried to “hang in there,” we would be destroyed. The fight of faith is not passive. It’s not survival-mode Christianity. The fight of faith is a fight you engage.

Paul continues in the same passage: “Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” I’d add: you made that confession in the presence of many enemies too. Heaven heard you. Hell heard you. People who love you heard you. People who don’t understand you heard you.

And the verse before that, verse 11, lays out the lifestyle required for this fight: “Flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.”

In other words, fighting the fight of faith requires a maintained, developed, and growing love-walk. Brother Hagin hit it straight: “The pathway to victory is love.”

Fighting the good fight of faith cannot come from a robotic confession routine. Not “confess the word, confess the word” hoping to batter the devil with volume. It must come from divine energy inside you. Christ in you, the hope of glory. The anointed Word rising up from the inside because the anointed Word is the Word of Love. God is love. Faith works by love (Galatians 5:6). So the fight of faith must be produced out of love.

But how do you stay in that place of love? By establishing your heart in peace. A peace that guards you. A thanksgiving that keeps you tender. A rejoicing that releases the flow of God’s love again.

1 John says if anyone “loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” It continues: “Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness… whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling.”

Love opens the path. Offence blinds the path.

Offence is really just “a fence.” A wall we build in the name of self-protection, but the irony is painful: it stops love flowing out and stops love flowing in. So when someone tries to love you, you’re suspicious. When someone tries to hurt you, you retreat behind concrete walls. But peace is supposed to guard your heart — not walls.

Philippians tells us to think on what is good, pure, and lovely, because those thoughts keep your heart open to the flow of love.

Jesus called us to love others as we love ourselves. But when someone treats us wrong, we assume that must be how they want to be treated. The truth? Many Christians don’t know how to love well, even though they should. And leaders like us? We’re supposed to be known for our love, even while carrying crosses daily.

Love is not soft. Love speaks truth. Love fuels faith. Truth without love is brutality. Love without truth is sentimentality. But truth in love produces the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.

But let’s be blunt: you cannot flow in love with an offended heart. You cannot win a spiritual fight while holding natural grudges. When your heart is full of walls, you will stumble in darkness while thinking you’re walking in discernment.

The Pharisees stumbled over Jesus — the Rock of Offence — because they carried offence. Offence is a spiritual trap disguised as self-protection.

And when people act against you, when their actions become the manifestation of spiritual pressure, that is when love must rise. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, even when flesh and blood is shouting, accusing, misunderstanding, or misjudging us.

You raise the shield of faith. You swing the sword of the Spirit. But the sword works through love.

Love dumps “hot coals” on your enemy’s head. Love feels like conceding, especially when you apologise even when you’re not wrong. But really, you’re stepping into a higher realm.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.” We usually reserve that for unbelievers. But when Christians hurt us, we say, “They should know better.”

But people judge your actions, not your motives. And motives, no matter how pure, don’t communicate through walls of offence.

Love melts. Love disarms. Love wins.

And if the other person refuses to change, you are still free. You have fought the good fight of faith — a fight that always wins when the supply line of love remains open. Love “covers a multitude of sins.” It covers theirs. It heals yours. And it empowers your victory.

✍️ Andy