2 TIMOTHY 2:15 TPT
Always be eager to present yourself before God as a perfect and mature minister, without shame, as one who CORRECTLY EXPLAINS the WORD of TRUTH.
2 TIMOTHY 2:15 AMP
Study and do your best to present yourself to God approved, a workman [tested by trial] who has no reason to be ashamed, ACCURATELY HANDLING and SKILLFULLY TEACHING the WORD of TRUTH.
The biblical interpreter handles God's Word without shame only when the Lord himself approves of the interpretation.
We must, therefore, carefully interpret Scripture.
1. WHY fight the fight of Faith?
2. WHAT is the fight of Faith?
3. HOW to fight the fight of Faith?
1 TIMOTHY 1:18 EASY
Timothy, you are like my own child.
So now I am telling you to SERVE GOD WELL.
REMEMBER the WORDS from GOD and that PEOPLE spoke about you,
WHEN you became a servant of GOD.
THOSE WORDS will help you to be strong, like a soldier who FIGHTS WELL.
1 TIMOTHY 1:18 ICB
Timothy, you are like a son to me.
I am giving you a command that agrees with the prophecies that were given about you in the past.
I tell you this so that you can FOLLOW those PROPHECIES and FIGHT the GOOD FIGHT of FAITH.
1 TIMOTHY 1:19-20 ICB
Continue to have FAITH and DO what you know is right.
Some people have not done this.
Their faith has been destroyed.
Hymenaeus and Alexander are men who have done that.
I have given them to Satan so that they will learn not to speak against God.
1 TIMOTHY 6:9 TPT
But those who crave the wealth of this world slip into spiritual snares.
They become trapped by the troubles that come through their foolish and harmful desires, driven by greed and drowning in their own sinful pleasures.
And they TAKE OTHERS DOWN with them into their corruption and eventual destruction.
1 TIMOTHY 6:10 TPT
Loving money is a root of all evils.
Some people run after it so much that they have given up their faith.
CRAVING MORE MONEY pushes them AWAY from the FAITH into ERROR,
- compounding misery in their lives!
1 TIMOTHY 6:10 EASY
When people like to have lots of money, it causes all kinds of bad things to happen.
Some people have stopped believing the message about Christ BECAUSE they want to get more money.
As a result, they have caused themselves to become sad with many troubles.
1 TIMOTHY 6:11 TPT
Timothy, YOU are GOD’S man, so RUN FROM all these errors.
INSTEAD, CHASE AFTER true holiness, justice, faithfulness, love, hope, and tender humility.
1 TIMOTHY 6:11 NKJV
But you, O MAN of GOD,
- FLEE these things
- and PURSUE righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.
1 TIMOTHY 6:11 EASY
But you, Timothy, are a servant of God.
So KEEP AWAY from all bad things like that.
Instead, always try to do what is right.
Serve God in a way that pleases him.
Choose to trust God and to love other people.
Continue to be strong when you have trouble.
Be kind to people.
1 TIMOTHY 6:12 EASY
Continue to believe God's true message.
Be like someone who fights well to keep it safe.
God has chosen you to live with him for ever.
You stood in front of many people and said clearly that you believed in Jesus Christ.
So LIVE in a WAY that SHOWS that YOU BELONG to HIM.
1 TIMOTHY 6:12 NKJV
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life,
to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
G75 fight
Original: ἀγωνίζομαι
Transliteration: AGŌNIZOMAI
Phonetic: ag-o-nid'-zom-ahee
Thayer Definition:
- to enter a contest: contend in the gymnastic games
- to contend with adversaries, fight
- to contend, struggle, with difficulties and dangers
- to endeavour with strenuous zeal, strive : to obtain something
Strong's Definition:
From G73; to struggle, literally (to COMPETE for a PRIZE), (to CONTEND with an adversary),
- or (to ENDEAVOR to ACCOMPLISH something) :- fight, labor fervently, strive.
We have one enemy
1 TIMOTHY 6:12 ICB
Keeping your faith is like RUNNING a RACE.
Try as hard as you can to WIN.
Be sure you receive the LIFE that CONTINUES FOREVER.
You were called to have that life.
And you confessed the great truth about Christ in a way that many people heard.
1 TIMOTHY 6:14 EASY
You must obey the commands that you have received.
OBEY THEM COMPLETELY without any mistake until our Lord Jesus Christ returns.
New covenant also have obey
1 TIMOTHY 6:15 EASY
God will cause Christ to appear at the proper time.
God is great, and he alone rules with all authority.
He is the greatest King and the most powerful Lord.
1 TIMOTHY 6:16 EASY
God alone lives for ever.
He lives in very bright light that nobody can come near.
Nobody has ever seen God.
Nobody is able to see him.
So we praise him!
He will rule for ever with great authority!
Amen! This is true.
1 TIMOTHY 6:17 EASY
Warn those people who are rich with many things that belong to this world.
Tell them not to think that they are more important than other people.
They must not think that their money will keep them safe.
They could easily lose all of it. Instead, they should trust God. He gives us many things, so that we can enjoy all of them.
God is still in charge of this world
1 TIMOTHY 6:17-19 MSG
Tell those rich in this world’s wealth to quit being so full of themselves and so obsessed with money, which is here today and gone tomorrow.
Tell them to go after God, who piles on all the riches we could ever manage—to do good, to be rich in helping others, to be extravagantly generous.
If they do that, they’ll build a treasury that will last, gaining life that is truly life.
Be generous!
1 TIMOTHY 6:20 EASY
Timothy, God has given you his true message to tell people.
You must keep that message safe.
Do not listen to people who say a lot of silly things that are not important to God.
Those people think that they have special knowledge.
But THEIR IDEAS are against God's true message.
1 TIMOTHY 6:21 EASY
Some people have BELIEVED those WRONG IDEAS and now they NO LONGER TRUST GOD.
I pray that God will continue to be very kind to all of you.
To fight the good fight of faith means that we KEEP on OBEYING GOD'S WORD in FAITH,
- no matter what we feel, think or understand.
Who are the men who will fight the good fight of faith?
Who will stay and battle while others fall away?
In the words of 1 Timothy 4:12, which young men will step up and set an example for the believers in faith?
1 TIMOTHY 4:12 ICB
You are young, but do not let anyone treat you as if you were not important.
Be an example to show the believers how they should live. Show them with your WORDS, with the WAY you LIVE, with your LOVE, with your FAITH, and with your PURE LIFE.
That faith is a fight means believing will not be easy.
It won’t always feel natural, organic, or effortless.
We could never earn the love of Christ, but FOLLOWING HIM will often be harder than we expect or want.
“If anyone would come after me,” Jesus says in Luke 9:23,
“let him deny himself and take up his cross” — and not the light and charming crosses some wear around their necks,
but the pain and heartache of following a crucified King in the world that killed him.
If we declare our love for Jesus, God tells us, suffering will expose and refine us.
1 PETER 4:12-13 TPT
Beloved friends, if life gets extremely difficult, with many tests, don’t be bewildered as though something strange were overwhelming you.
Instead, continue to REJOICE, for you, in a measure, have SHARED in the SUFFERINGS of the ANOINTED ONE so that you can SHARE in the REVELATION of HIS GLORY and celebrate with even greater gladness!
People will despise, slander, and disown us.
JOHN 15:18 TPT
“Just remember, when the unbelieving world hates you, they first hated me.
Satan and his demons will assault us.
JOHN 10:10 TPT
A thief has only one thing in mind—he wants to steal, slaughter, and destroy.
But I have come to give you everything in abundance,
more than you expect —life in its fullness until you overflow!
Only faith can counteract what the devil wants to do
Our own sin will seek to ruin us from within.
1 PETER 2:11 TPT
My divinely loved friends, since you are resident aliens and foreigners in this world, I appeal to you to divorce yourselves from the evil desires that wage war WITHIN you.
If we refuse to fight, we won’t last.
The ships of our souls will inevitably drift, and then crash,
take on water, and sink.
The verses before 1 Timothy 6:12 give us examples of specific threats we will face in the fight of faith, and each still threatens men today.
ENEMY OF PRIDE
When Paul describes the men who had walked away from Jesus, specifically those who had been teaching faithfully but had now embraced false teaching, he points first to their pride.
1 TIMOTHY 6:3-4 NKJV
If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is PROUD, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions,
Many of us do not last in faith because we simply cannot submit to any god but ourselves, because we do not see pride — our instinct to put ourselves above others, even God — as an enemy of our souls."
ENEMY OF DISTRACTION
Pride was not the only enemy these men faced, however.
Paul says they also had “an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people”
(1 Timothy 6:4–5).
It’s almost hard to believe the apostle wasn’t writing
about the twenty-first century.
Were these distractions really problems thousands of years before Twitter, before the Internet, before even the printing press?
Apparently so.
And yet the temptation explains so much of our dysfunction today.
In our sin, we often nurture an unhealthy craving for controversy.
Faithfulness doesn’t sell ads; friction does.
As you scroll through your feeds or watch the evening news or even monitor your casual conversation, ask how much of what you’re allowing into your soul falls into 1 Timothy 6:4–5.
How much of our attention has been intentionally,
even relentlessly, steered into passing controversies and vain debates?
How much have we been fed suspicion, envy, and slander as “news,” not realizing how poisonous this kind of diet is to our faith?
ENEMY OF MORE
Greed is a threat we know exists, and often see in others,
but rarely see in ourselves — especially in a greed-driven society like ours in America.
The insatiable craving for more, however, can leave us spiritually dull and penniless.
Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare,
into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.
It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. (1 Timothy 6:9–10)
When you read “those who desire to be rich,” don’t think
elaborate mansions in tropical places with pools beside the ocean;
think “those who crave more than they need.”
In other words, this isn’t a rare temptation, but a pervasive one, especially in wealthier nations.
The temptation may be subtle, but the consequences are not.
These cravings, the apostle warns, “plunge people into
ruin and destruction.”
Their life is choked out not by pain or sorrow or fear, but by the pleasures of life (Luke 8:14) — things to buy, shows to watch, meals to eat, places to visit.
“The more we see how much threatens our walk with
Jesus, the less surprising it is that so many walk away.”
Do we still wonder why Paul would call faith a fight?
The more we see how much threatens our walk with Jesus,
the less surprising it is that so many walk away.
What’s more surprising is that some men learn to fight well and then keep fighting while others bow out of the war.
HOW to WIN the WAR?
If we see our enemies for what they are, how do we wage war against them?
In 1 Timothy 6:11–12, Paul gives us four clear charges for the battlefield:
FLEE. PURSUE. FIGHT. SEIZE.
First, we flee.
Some have been puffed up by pride, others have been distracted by controversy, and still others have fallen in love with this world — “but as for you, O man of God, flee these things” (1 Timothy 6:11).
Spiritual warfare is not fight or flight;
it is FIGHT and FLIGHT.
We prepare to battle temptation, but we also do our best to avoid temptation altogether.
As far as it depends on us, we “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Romans 13:14)."
ROMANS 13:11-12 EASY
Live in that way, because you know what is happening in this time now.
It is time that you should stop sleeping.
It is now time to WAKE UP.
The time when God will save us completely is near.
That time is nearer now than when we first believed in him.
The night has nearly finished and the day is almost here.
So we must stop doing the bad things that belong to the dark.
Instead, we must TAKE WEAPONS like SOLDIERS who are READY to FIGHT in the LIGHT.
FIGHT the ENEMY.
Don't fight God.
For many, feeding the flesh is more appetizing than feeding the Spirit.
"The less Holy Spirit we have, the more cake and coffee we need to keep the church going.
Nothing against cake or coffee, but the Holy Spirit cannot be substituted.
- REINHARD BONNKE
STOP FEEDING your FLESH
START FEEDING your SPIRIT
YOUR SPIRITMAN NEEDS to be STRONG in order TO FIGHT the
FIGHT OF FAITH!
When you know the truth, the truth will set you free
Set you free from bondage, that you can now serve the Lord powerfully, by the power of holy spirit
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