Fight the Good Fight!!

Well this week we started looking at our theme for this year which is "Fight the Good Fight". Our Battalion theme verse is 1 Timothy 6:11-12, which says "But you man of God, flee from all of this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses."

So what does that mean to fight the good fight? How can we do that and pursue love and gentleness at the same time? Who and/or what are we fighting against? What tools, weapons or training do we have to be ready to fight? I hope that this year we will look at some answers to these questions and many more.


This week we read Exodus 17:8-16. The story of the Amalekites coming to attack the Israelites and how Moses instructed Joshua to lead the army into battle and then went to the top of the overlooking hill. Moses held the staff of God in the air and as long as he held it up Israel would win, if he let it lower then the Amalekites would win. Eventually Moses became tired and his friends Aaron and Hur held his arms up until night when the battle ended, and Israel was victorious. Clearly God was the reason for the victory, no matter how they fought the men on the field would win or lose depending on how God responded. We also read in Ephesians 6 that our battle is not against flesh and blood, or other people, it is against the principalities and powers of this "dark" world. The fighters in that picture up there, they live their lives to fight. They train extremely hard to be in great shape and to prepare for the next fight, they work on skills and techniques to be able to overpower the other guy. Unlike them we don't have a date that we know the battle will take place on, instead we have to fight the battle each day against the power and temptations of the devil.

We read in Romans 12 about how christians make up one body. We all have different gifts and abilities and we are supposed to work together. In council ring I brought out my sword and asked any of the guys if they would like to fight me. Obviously nobody is all that eager when you are swinging a 4' long sword. Then I asked what if they had armour and a sword of their own? I think a couple of the older guys might have taken me on at that point but not the younger ones. Then I asked them if I was blind if they would fight me. A couple still thought I might get lucky and hit them by swinging wildly, but there was a little more interest. Then I asked if I had only one leg if they would. Almost everyone thought that me on one leg would be pretty easy to dodge past and take down. I explained that not working together as christians is like a soldier trying to fight with one leg and/or no eyes. He is easy to pick off, even by a smaller less powerful enemy.

At Battalion we learn about God together, we memorize verses together, we play games together, we hang out together, but we can also work together and fight together as christians. Just a few of the ways that we can help each other are:
- encouraging one another
- being accountable to one another
- praying together and also praying for each other
- showing love to each other and to others around us
- helping each other with truthful advice or wisdom
- being bold and courageous, sticking up for each other, encouraging each
other to be bold when we need to and sticking with them when they do
- sword fighting, the bible says the word is like a two edged sword, and we
should know how to use it, working together we can memorize it, read it,
and study it so that we can use it effectively.

We played Murderball again this week. The teams looked pretty even at the beginning. The first game was an epic that seemed as though it might never end. Just when one team would be close to finishing off the other they would manage to get a few guys back and then keep going. I think both teams were down to 1 or 2 guy a couple times. In the end though Luke's team won 3 out of 4 games.

Speaking of Luke, don't forget to pray for him as he heads to YWAM on Friday. Pray that he would have an amazing time, and that Luke would learn more about God and be able to do some awesome work for him while he is at YWAM.