Fight the good fight in faith

People are good at fighting. We fight about a lot of things. We fight fire with fire, we fight on, we fight back, we fight against, we prizefight and, when winter comes, we have snowball fights. "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog." Heard that one?

The Bible has some things to say about fighting. The difference is that it teaches we are fighting against things that destroy faith. The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, saying, "Fight the good fight, have faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and have shipwrecked their faith."

A good conscience is what navigates us through life's decisions. When a believer rejects a good conscience, they suffer shipwreck to their faith. The typical fate of a shipwreck in Paul's day was that of a ship running aground in shallow water and the waves beating it until it broke apart. That is the fate of many people today who have deconstructed their faith. They have taken what they call a fresh look at their faith, and the outcome is that they usually end up with no faith at all.

The apostle Paul warned the Colossians about this when he wrote, "Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers of this world,