“The Blessings of Sonship” No. 12 by Rev. Toru Asai

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses (1 Tim 6:12).

If the promise that we will be heirs of God is fulfilled by faith, then, the promise that we will be blessed with various blessing we are entitled to as heirs of God is also fulfilled by faith. Therefore, the fight we fight in order to receive God's blessings takes place in the area of our faith. The reason that this is a fight is because everywhere in this world, we see the work of destruction, but instead, we want to see the work of creation in our life. This friction between the work of destruction and that of creation results in ongoing fights we fight as long as we live on earth. The above scripture encourages us to "fight the good fight of the faith" we have in Christ. It is good to fight, and every fight we fight is a good fight because we are more than conquerors as long as we fight correctly according to God's word.

Let us see a few examples of how we are to fight in order to take possession of what is promised. See, for instance, the following words:

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Mat 6:33).

It is crucial to know that the way we work to live today has come as a result of our sin. God did not create our world this way at the beginning. So, what God did by making us his heirs again through his redemption in Christ was to bring us back to the original state, in which all the spiritual and physical needs were met by our "heavenly Father," so that we would fully concentrate on seeking his kingdom and his righteousness first. And we know that it takes faith to do so believing that our Father will meet all our needs. Surely, it is a fight of faith, and the above scripture teaches us the correctly way to fight this fight.

There is another kind of fight we all fight in this world. The Bible says, "by his wounds you have been healed (1 Pet 2:24, Isa 53:5)." Sickness is the work of destruction upon our physical bodies, which also came as a result of our sin. Yet, in Christ, just as we have been redeemed from our sins, we have also been set free from all sickness and diseases. It is important, however, to know that no blessings fall on us automatically: we need to take possession of them by faith. So, to struggle to get healed and stay healthy is another type of fight we fight. Jesus said to a paralytic at one time, "Get up, take your mat and go home." He did not pray, but commanded the paralytic to get up, take his mat and go home. This paralytic had neither got up, taken his mat, nor gone home walking on his feet for some time, but as he tried, and began to do what he was commanded believing that he could do so, the miracle happened to him. It was a fight of faith that he fought correctly according to Jesus' word, and he was healed.

In the book of Joshua, we read the story of the people of Israel crossing the Jordan to enter the Promised Land. God commanded the priests:

When you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river (Josh 3:8).

And the book goes on to say:

Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, … while the water … was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho (vv. 16-16).

This happened because Joshua, the priests and the people—all of them—faithfully obeyed God and did what he told them to do. It should be compared with the story of the spies sent to the Promised Land in Numbers 13-14. The people who heard the reports of the spies, grumbled, wailed and wished that they had been in Egypt. The difference is big and obvious, and it is exactly this difference that brings the difference between those who actually receive the blessings promised to God's heirs and those who do not.