Good fight of faith

"The verse doesn't say 'fight the good fight of thee faith'; the doctrine. There's a struggle you have everyday to take the truth you know and make it applicable in your life. Circumstances come up and you have a struggle--'Do I take what God says is truth and obey it there, or do I just go on my previous resources?'

"Sometimes you go on your previous resources and realize, 'Oops, I didn't take that into consideration,' and you have to back up. But it's a struggle of the application of truth to your life. Timothy walked through Paul's life and saw him do that over and over again. That's a valuable kind of thing.

"Paul writes, 'With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love.' I love that verse in Corinthians that says 'the more I love the less I'm loved.'

"When you practice Ephesians 4:32 nobody can insult you. It says, [32] And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

"It's a matter of faith. It's a matter of the good fight of faith in the face of insult, injury. That works. Endure affliction. When the C&S Gang (circumstances and situations) come and start beating on you, your endurance is in Christ. It's going to come. Do the work of an evangelist. Make full proof of your ministry.

"That's saying, 'Don't stop. Don't quit.' In Colossians 4:17, Paul says, 'Take heed to the ministry which thou hast received in the Lord, that thou fulfil it.'

"It's always too soon to quit. Might not seem like it; circumstances might not agree with that,  but it's always too soon to quit.

"Accountability is what grace allows you to be. The idea that you're responsible without accountability is not grace. If you can't look at your failures honestly, you can't put them off. 

"How you will be dealt with at the Judgment Seat of Christ is on the basis of faith, not condemnation, not shame, not reproach. You'll be able to look at it the way God looks at it through the blood of Christ.

"When you learn to do that daily in your life then the Judgment Seat of Christ won't be something you fear. When you see people fearing it, it's because they don't understand the grace life. You can be responsible; that's how you grow."

(I can now type (barely) with my left wrist in a cast and my right wrist sore and tender all over, as is the other wrist. I was using 3 lb. weights, powerwalking, when I fell and hit the pavement.)