Contending for the Faith

The world is not a safe place for a Christian, there are many dangers out there that can overcome Christians around the world. While there is a real physical persecution that goes on among Christians this really is not what I am referring to. I'm talking about the dangers the world poses to believers by trapping them in worldly things and dragging us away from following God's will. This threat is greater than the threat of death for a Christian, because death just leads us to heaven where we will live forever with God, that really doesn't scare me too much. By being led away from the will of God it not only hurts us by separating us from fellowship with our Lord, but I also causes us to be ineffective servants, and means we will be less effective at leading others to the salvation we enjoy.

Jud 1:3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

Jude's exhortation to contend for the faith is an important one, and one I find several applications for. We must contend both within our own lives for our faith as well as contending for the rights of the faithful in then world. Both of these battles are important and must be fought with God guiding us. In the rest of this article I'm going to outline what I believe to be the most effective ways to fight these battles. Its also important to remember who our real enemy is in these battles. The people of the world, the unsaved, are not our enemies. They may persecute us, ridicule us and act against us at times but it is the influence of the real enemy who guides them. The unsaved are hostages being used against us by Satan. One of the most important things to remember when preparing to contend for the faith is that our adversary is out and about preparing to do battle with us as well.

1Pe 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

Peter had it right, we must be ever vigilant in our daily lives, because Satan is out and about, walking like a roaring lion seeking those whom he can devour. This brings us to the first kind of contention for the faith which we must be ready for.

Contending in our own lives:

Our battles always begin in our own life, we must contend for our own personal faith first before we can effectively fight for faith in the world, after all if we don't know what we stand for we will continually fall for everything. In our daily walk through life we are bombarded by un-biblical things; TV shows, movies, music, advertisements all pushing the world's agenda, trying to lure us to be part of society and enjoy all it has to offer. This is why we must 'walk in the spirit' as we are told in Galatians 5:16. For if we walk in the spirit we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. We can do this through reading the bible, praying for spiritual guidance and listening to the prodding of the Holy Spirit. It is very important to walk spiritually like this because the world desperately wants to be our friend, and that might not sound too bad, until we read James 4:4 'Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.' I don't know about you, but enmity with God is not high on my list of things I want.
I admit that unless we go and live in a cave away from everyone and everything we will be exposed to the world and the lusts thereof, but just because we can't avoid the world, doesn't mean we have to run to it either. Something God touched me with and really drove into my heart was that we must be very careful what we watch, listen to, partake in, etc. As Jude puts it, in verse 4, 'For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. ' This refers primarily to false teachers and preachers, those who spout false doctrine off, and of these men we must be wary. This is another good reason why we need to be reading the bible everyday, so we will be equipped to compare the teachings of our leaders with the teachings of the Word of God.

It is also important to look at this verse in regards to everything we do, because men have crept into Hollywood, into music, into TV and even the news, and these men spread just as damaging things into our lives as false teachers do. They spread that friendship to the world that we have seen be so dangerous. It is very sad for me to say but more than one church, sometimes even whole denominations, have fallen prey to society. It begins by trying to tone down the Gospel to be more 'seeker friendly' and get more people in church. Soon these churches are not churches anymore but just little groups of people who get together to talk about God's love without bringing anything else into it. The desire to be more like society is poisoning not just believers, not just churches but the Church as a whole. Now this brings me over to my second point of contention.

Contending in the world:

We have to get out of our churches, leave the holy huddle and make war on the world around us. Now I'm not talking about physical war, hurting anyone or destroying property. Looking to the teachings of Paul we see what kind of war fare we fight.

2Co 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
2Co 10:4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
2Co 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

So our warfare is not physical (carnal) but spiritual. Now we know how we fight, but who do we fight?

Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

These principalities are the armies of Satan, the roaring lion we must be vigilant for. We fight with weapons of prayer calling in God's grace and power to help us. We fight also by witnessing and spreading God's word, after all the more hostages we free the less Satan has to use against us! We fight by living our lives under God's will, in line with the bible, and not giving Satan a foothold to bring us down. We fight by using the bible as a filter and holding up everything we watch, we read, we study or willingly expose ourselves to against it. We fight by not being friends with the world, but by being friends with God and enemies of the world.

The last way to contend with the world is by standing up to the world. At least in America we have a right to get involved with politics in various ways. Now not all political agendas interest me as a Christian but those that do I think we should make a stand on. We can start letter writing campaigns, petitions, vote for those we feel will uphold what we believe in. Don't be afraid to voice your opinion on sinfulness on TV or in movies, sure we won't be popular for it, but does that really matter if we're popular with men or with God?

I'm sure many people will accuse me of being legalistic for writing this and talking against the kinds of movies we watch. So before I end this article I'd like to take a little poll. Show of hands Christians-I'll trust your raising your hand when you read these- How many Christians think it is not ok to sit and watch a pornographic movie?
How about a movie that is not technically pornographic but contains lots of nudity and sex scenes?
Ok, how about movies with graphic violence?
Graphic swearing?
How about movies that contain a little bit of swearing, some violence and glorify things like homosexual lifestyles or unmarried couples living together?
A lot less hands out there, well I'm assuming anyway.
We have to be careful, society will sneak into our movies and music and before we know it some people will start to think its ok, after all everyone else does it. Now I want to thank you all for reading this, I hope it has challenged you as much reading as it has challenged me to write it. God bless and keep you all.