We must take the fight seriously-it's life or death!

So often we refer to the Christian life as a battle, a fight or a war. Although this is very biblical and true, sadly, it has become for many Christians just another Christian cliché. We often refer to the war, battle or fight, more for the sake of making our Christian lives feel like something exciting, tough, manly and hardcore, rather than referring to it for the sake of depicting the actual reality Christian existence.

Christianity, with all its "nice" people, sweet hymns, coffee cups with bible verses and Sunday smiles, can loose its sense of reality. We don't need to pretend we are in a war (what many guys do because western Christianity can be so naf!). We need to slap ourselves across the face and realise that we are in a war.

Now, the reason I’m saying this is because, when you pretend, it's not life and death. But real war is life and death. On D-day, allied troops jumped out the boat on the shores of France and were mowed down, dead! That's life and death-that’s war. Is that what we are experiencing? Well, let’s look at how sin is rampaging through the lives of Christians (I include myself here). Sadly, sin is doing to christians what the Germans did to the Allies. It’s mowing them down! Recently I read some stats about the state of Christian marriage. The stats are dismal. What about purity before marriage-it's not great either. I mentioned a few posts ago, the Christian life is not about morality primarily, yet it does involve fighting sin, night and day. Not play-play pretend fighting. No, real fighting, real battle, real strategy.

What inspired this post was a series of sermons that I listened to by someone I consider to be a real Commando in our generation, John Piper. He is preaching through Romans 6 and presents to us a real, biblical strategy to fighting sin. I was challenged when hearing this because so often I have a take-it-as-it-comes attitude to my fight against sin. Well, to be honest, I don't think that is going to cut it. I was challenged by Piper to have a proper battle plan when it comes to waging war against sin.

I have linked the two sermons (below) to this post so that you can check them out. It's worth it. God, and the delight of fighting for his glory is worth it.

Free from Sin, Slaves of Righteousness, Part 1

Free from Sin, Slaves of Righteousness, Part 2

(Its two sermons(oooh, long!)but definitely worth the read and thought)