“You may have to fight the battle more than once to win it” Margaret Thatcher. No doubt the iron lady of Great Britain was speaking about politics, but her statement applies to us as we fight to overcome sin.
At one point, Peter was willing to fight a whole band of men who had come to take his Lord by force. A few hours later he denied three times that he even knew Jesus.
We also must continue to fight the battle to overcome the temptations that surround us. Sometimes we are able to resist with ease and come away unscathed. At other times, we are weak and vulnerable to the very same temptation.
It is important for us to recognize that the battle must be fought over and over and that our ability to resist is not always the same. For this reason, we need to get up mentally for the fight against the flesh. Paul said, “I die daily.” He also said, “Fight the good fight of faith.”
We need to recognize that the battle must be fought over and over and each day we have to mentally prepare all over again. Paul, at the end of his life, was able to say, “I have fought a good fight,I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” He could only say this because he had died to the flesh daily, he had kept the faith one day at a time, every day.
Sometimes, we fight the battle and win. We resist the temptation and temporarily it is gone. But all too often we then let our guard down, and here the temptation comes back from the other direction.
The Lord Jesus was tempted to eat when he was starving. He resisted. He was tempted to use his God-given power to protect himself in a fall. He resisted. But this was not the end of his temptations. Similar temptations came back to haunt him over and over again during his ministry.
He had no sooner resisted the challenge to cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple and land safely, when his own people in Nazareth “took him by force and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.” This time he could simply have allowed them to push him over the edge and used his God-given power to float gently to ground. He resisted again.
The lesson we learn is that every day there is a “battle to be fought, an onward race to run.” Every day we must be prepared to face temptations and trials, knowing that we will never be “tempted beyond that which we are able to bear.”
We must not rest on our laurels and think we can win today’s battle with yesterday’s score.
“This is the day which the Lord hath made.” “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
The truth of Margaret Thatcher’s statement is aptly expressed in the words of our hymn, “There is a battle to be fought, an onward race to run, a crown of glory to be sought, a victory to be won.”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One