Living By Faith Blog

The fight of faith

Last week a young woman sent me a note describing how she fought the fight of faith so her heart would not be drawn away from Christ.

I found it deeply encouraging, and so (with her permission), am posting it here —

Here’s her note —

Mr. Fuller,

Thank you so much for another encouraging post!  I almost daily check your blog and am always challenged!

I love your analogy of the car!  It makes the point so well!

It seems to often take such a mental effort to chose to be Spirit empowered instead of self-reliant!  There again, it takes turning away from self and turning to Christ!

I find that if I am not spending the time praying that I ought, I often am using a lot of self-effort instead of allowing the Spirit to empower me.

I so appreciate how you focus so often on being satisfied in Christ!  It has been so helpful to me!

Just recently I found myself being satisfied in something other than Christ, and it was pulling me away from focusing on Him.

It was a love song that I came across. And it’s not that I think it is wrong to listen to a love song.

However, for me as an unmarried young lady, it causes a lot of struggle, especially when there is a video to go along with the music.

It was like I came face to face with [how I am going] to have my deepest love needs fulfilled and satisfied.

Am I going to choose to satisfy my flesh with this song/video, or am I going to embrace Christ with all my heart and be satisfied to the core of my being in Him and His perfect love for me?

By God’s grace, and the working of His Spirit, I was enabled to turn my heart back to Him and embrace satisfaction in Him as I confessed my sin and focused on who He is and what He has done for me.

But I don’t think I would have been able to see it so clearly and deal with it the same way, if it hadn’t been for your almost daily encouragement through your blog.

Thank you so much!

Wishing you every blessing in Christ Jesus,
A sister in Christ

The fight of faith

Isn’t that  a powerful description of how to fight temptation?

She sees that every temptation promises — falsely — that it will satisfy us more than Christ.

So she fights the fight of faith until she sees and feels that Jesus is her greatest satisfaction.

How have you experienced this?

I’d love to hear your comments — use the box below.  Thanks.

Do you know someone who would be helped by reading this?  Email it to them using the “share” button below — or use the buttons to share it on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.

If you would like to receive a Saturday email summarizing the week’s posts — subscribe here.  (I will only use your email address for Living By Faith Blog communications — and you can easily unsubscribed at any time.)

And here’s some related posts you might find helpful —

• How to Obey God -- Self-Pushing or Spirit-Empowering?
• 6 Reasons Heart-Satisfaction Is Crucial
• C. S. Lewis on Motivation, Self-Denial, and Rewards
• How to Fight the Fight of Faith

(Picture is from everystockphoto by Shandi-lee.)