Friday July 7, 2023
1 Timothy 6:17
Fight the good fight of faith.
Victory over sin is from first to last a victory of faith. It is so from the very moment of conversion.
To be converted does not mean that you yourself have the power to free yourself from your old sinfulness, that you yourself have the power to change your heart and are therefore able to begin to hate sin and love God.
To be converted means rather that you in your distress turn to Christ and tell Him the whole truth: that you are hopelessly enmeshed in your old sins and that you love sin and not God.
Then you will receive from Christ the power which you yourself lack. And you will receive it by faith.
The daily struggle against sin takes place in exactly the same way.
However, this daily striving against your old sinful habits is perhaps the weakest point in your whole Christian life. You strive against your failings, suffer defeat, and become discouraged. Then you lose hope.
You will continue to suffer defeat until you learn to fight the fight of faith against your sinful habits.
To oppose my old sinful habits in faith means not to array myself and my own strength against these habits, but to turn to Christ and acknowledge that I will be defeated if He does not help me with His almighty hand.
The fight of faith which the believer wages is, therefore, a struggle to get away from self and to Christ.
It is then that we experience victory in the struggle against our old sins.
A calm and humble courage settles down upon our souls and forms a shield of faith which quenches all the fiery darts of the evil one.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD 
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