A. The Bible teaches that we are to be overcomers in every arena of life. That means that we are in a fight. The Bible’s says you’re going to have to fight the good fight in order to lay hold on eternal life.
B. The term “eternal life” means more than the “timelessness of eternity” when we go to heaven. When a person becomes born again, they have laid hold on an aspect of eternal life. But that’s not where the fight is. W.E.Vines says the word Zoë means “eternal life,” as in the “God kind of life.” Our fight is a fight of faith to lay hold on a higher quality of life on earth—life as God has it, without disease, oppression, insufficiency.
C. Now that we know what the fight is about, the next thing we need to know is where the fight lies and how we appropriate the provisions of our covenant. Psalm 37:4 shows us how to fight the good fight of faith, to lay hold on eternal life. Delight thyself also in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
D. This verse speaks about desire. Human desire is the primary motivator of all human behavior. The things you do consistently reflect the strongest desires that operate within you. Therefore, if you want to change your life, you must change your desire. God is saying if you “delight yourself in Him,” He will change wrong desire and replace it with right desire. It’s at this point that your life can begin progressing down the path of His will and blessing.
E. A changed life is what the fight of faith is all about—becoming a light in the darkness of this world, becoming the salt of the earth, tapping into God’s covenant provision, living your life as a written epistle of God’s goodness and provision.
F. The most basic way to perceive God’s will for your life is to listen to the desires of your heart when you’ve been delighting yourself in the Him, because those desires will orient your life down the path of His will.
G. Let’s talk about what it means to delight. The Hebrew word for delight simply means “take pleasure in.” But I find the best way to define a term is to find other places in the Word where it’s used. Psalm 1:1-2 says Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly … 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. (KJV)
H. To delight in something means you focus your attention upon it. The word meditate is actually defined as “imagination.” In other words, the Word of God begins to shape your imagined future experiences of life. You delight yourself in the Lord by allowing what His Word says about you to begin shaping your perception of reality.
I. Reality isn’t what the secular mindset has to say. Reality is defined by the Word of God. To the extent that the Word begins to shape your perception of reality, that is the extent He can change the desires of your heart.
J. What do you think about the most? According to the Word, that’s what you’re delighting in. Is your focus mostly on your children? your hobby? your job? If you focus on these things more than you do the Word, then you can’t rely on the desires of your heart because they will be carnal desires and they’ll take you down the wrong path and it’ll bring cursing to you instead of blessing.
K. When you delight in the Lord by filling your mind with His Word, the desires within you will be God given and they’ll take you down the path of His will and blessing.
L. Now let’s read Psalms 37:5; Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass (KJV). He’s going to bring to pass the desire that He’s birthed within you. For instance, when you discover that healing is part of the atoning work of Christ and that it’s God’s will for you to be healed, it will produce a desire within you to be healed. God will fulfill that desire to be healed.
M. Bringing the promise of God to pass in our lives is where the fight of faith lies. There are three keys in this process: delight, commit, and trust. We just talked about the first key, which is to keep your thinking oriented upon God’s Word so He can create right desire within you.
N. The second key in the fight of faith is “committing thy way unto the Lord.” God and His Word are one. Committing thy way unto the Lord is the same as saying “committing to live your life by the standard of God’s Word.”
O. Jesus said that love summarizes the whole law. First, love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy mind, all thy soul; and secondly, to love thy neighbor as thyself. In other words, love is not an emotion or a feeling. Love gives—God so loved the world that He gave His Son. We too are to give of our lives, first of all, to the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength. We love Him by giving our lives to His service and purpose. Secondly, we are to give of our lives to meet the needs of others.
P. The third key in fighting the good fight is trusting in the Lord. We need to understand what trust is. Trust is different than faith. But you have to have faith before you can have trust.
Q. Faith is rooted in the revealed will of God. How can you have faith in something if you don’t know what the will of God is? Faith comes by reading about the promises of God that are in the Bible. Trust goes a step beyond faith because trust is necessary when the will of the Lord is not known. And this touches a large number of areas of our lives.
R. As you delight yourself in the Lord, He’ll give you right desires. A lot of those desires are confirmable by the Word. For instance, a desire to succeed in the market place is a desire that is confirmable by the Word—to be the head and not the tail, to be above and not beneath, to lend and not borrow. But when it comes to how or when, the timing or the method, this part of the will of God often times isn’t known to us. When you don’t know God’s timing on this matter, that’s when you must trust.
S. There’s always a certain amount of elapsed time between the God-given desire and when that desire is brought to pass. Galatians 6:9 refers to it as a “due season.” We know that from verse 7: Rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him.
T. We see more about waiting in verse 9; For evil doers shall be cut off but those that wait upon the Lord…. The idea that’s conveyed is that waiting is part of the process of faith and often you won’t know why. This is why you have to trust. If you didn’t have to wait, you wouldn’t need to trust. Trust is a necessary step to the manifestation of that desire. It’s when you learn to (what I call) “gracefully wait” that God will bring it to pass and not until then.
U. One possible reason for waiting on the promise is that you might need to grow up because God won’t bring it to pass if you’re going to squander it on your own lusts or use it wrongly.
V. Also, the Word says one of the reasons we wait is because it develops necessary traits of character in us. Fighting the good fight produces qualities that often times won’t come any other way.
W. If you’re waiting on the promise of God, don’t feel condemned thinking you missed it somewhere. There is, however, a time to examine your heart. Second Corinthians 13:5 says, Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith. Haggai 1:5 tells us to Consider your ways…. Ask Him, “Lord, am I the problem?” If you’re sincere, He’ll show you where you’ve missed it. If He doesn’t reveal anything to you, then move on.
X. One reason you might have to wait for God’s promise to be fulfilled is because God works through other people. Whatever your need might be, be it direction or encouragement, a divine connection, or financial provision, God will use a person to get it to you.
Y. God doesn’t force other people do what they need to do just so you don’t have to wait. He’s limited by their free moral agency. He works with people and if His first choice doesn’t work, He’ll move on to someone else until He eventually gets it to you.
Z. How do you know if you’re not waiting gracefully or not trusting the Lord? Just listen to yourself. If you’re grumbling and griping and complaining and moaning, you’re not trusting God. And you’re not waiting gracefully!
