Fight, Fight, Fight



Ephesians 6:12  For we do not wrestle against, flesh and blood...
Exodus 17:9  Choose us some men and go out, fight with Amalek…
1Timothy  6:12 Fight the good fight of faith…

I recall, many years ago, going through a particularly difficult time—I was simply becoming weary in well doing.  At the time Rev. Homer Cantelon was my superintendent.   I called him up one day to cry on his shoulder, and he responded with some pretty good advice.  Here is what he told me.  “Peter, we are in a war.  Lie down and bleed a while—then get up and fight again!’ I’ve never forgotten that little piece of advice.

    

Just lately I heard Rev Tommy Barnett teach the following.  He was teaching about wanting to quit.  In that teaching, he said something along these lines.  'Wanting to quit is a sign of success--because only successful people have something to quit.  Lazy useless people have nothing to quit.  Tommy suggested he would rather fall, than having never tried.'

I was just thinking about that--even if you never actually win--better to have fought hard, faithfully, and long, than just sitting on the side lines watching (or in a pew yawning). 
I want to fight.
I want to work hard.
I want to be faithful.
Whether I actually 'win'--isn't important--being faithful is what counts.
I don't want to be a quitter.
I'm in a war.  There are times when I might have to crawl off and bleed awhile--but hold your breath!  I'm coming back to fight again!








Comments

  1. Unknown8 November 2013 at 07:13

    Great thoughts, Peter. I love Homer! "Lie down and bleed for a while"... not too many Pentecostals of his generation would have been so thoughtful or generous! Good advice when coupled with "get up and fight again." The question is whether we actually ever do this properly. I think our model has been: "Fight on, maybe less vigorously, and it will go away." And because it usually seems to we don't notice the accumulating pain of life and ministry, and then later collapse as a result, not of one one fatal wound, but the death of a thousand untended ones.

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