To Lay Hold on the Eternal Life to Which we were Called is to Fight the Good Fight

For us to fight the good fight of the faith, we need to lay hold on the eternal life to which we were called by being open to the divine dispensing and enjoying, living by, and having our being in the eternal life we received at our regeneration. Hallelujah!

As believers in Christ, we need to fight the good fight of the faith and war the good warfare.

Though we may be naturally inclined to keep the peace, because God has an enemy that constantly attacks His people, we need to stand on the Lord’s side.

We don’t fight with the weapons and means that the enemy fights with; we fight by exercising our spirit to be one with the Lord and by remaining in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles.

If we look at church history we see that, quite sadly, many of the early believers and local churches left the ministry of the apostles, and they entered into degradation and decline.

Decline comes in whenever we leave the teaching and fellowship of the apostles.

When we allow different teachings to come in, when we pay attention not only to God’s eternal economy but also to something else – which can be quite scriptural, moral, ethical, and good – we open the door to the degradation of the church.

We can be saved from the degradation of the church and be recovered back to God’s original intention by coming back to the word of God, the pure, unadulterated, word of God.

We need to remain in God’s word and be clear concerning God’s New Testament economy, which is revealed to us in spirit (Eph. 3:9).

This means that we need to come back to the word of God and exercise our spirit, opening to the Lord that He may grant us a clear, controlling vision of His economy.

Then, we will be clear concerning what God desires, and all the other things in the Bible will be properly interpreted in the view of God’s economy.

God has an economy, a household arrangement, to dispense all the riches of His being into His people so that they may be regenerated, renewed, transformed, conformed to His image, and glorified to express God corporately on the earth as the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem.

Today we as believers in Christ need to simply keep our being open to the Lord so that He may dispense all that He is into us.

We don’t need to take the initiative to do this or that work for God, neither should we passively wait and do nothing; we simply need to contact the Lord by exercising our spirit and remaining in the healthy teaching in the Word of God, and we will fight the good fight of the faith.

We will be clear concerning the different teachings, and we will speak and emphasize only God’s economy, which is in faith.

Fight the Good Fight of the Faith Delivered to us Once and for All: Christ and the Church

1 Tim. 6:12 says that we should fight the good fight of the faith.

What is this faith, and what does it mean to fight the good fight of the faith?

The faith we’re speaking of is not religion or “Christianity”; it is the New Testament faith, the things that we believe in to be saved.

We believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is God becoming man.

We believe in the fact that Christ was crucified on the cross to accomplish redemption, and on the third day He was resurrection.

We believe that in His resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit, and we believe that one day He will come again to receive His bride.

We believe that we are the church, the Body of Christ, the corporate expression of God on earth.

We contend for this faith, the faith which was delivered once for all to the saints (Jude 3-4).

We shouldn’t be passive Christians, aimless Christians who know that have their sins forgiven and now they live a peaceful life, waiting for the Lord Jesus to come and rapture them.

Rather, after believing into the Lord Jesus, we need to realize that we have faith planted into us.

We did not join a religious organization; rather, we have faith, which is Christ Himself as the One in whom we believe, who was infused into us and planted into us.

The Triune God who went through a process to be consummated as the Spirit came into us to regenerate us, and now we are joined to the Lord as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17).

The Triune God with all the processes He passed through, all that He is and has done, is the content of our faith.

And we fight for this faith, which has been delivered to us once and for all.

Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and He became a man to redeem man, was resurrected on the third day, and now He lives in us to make us the same as He is to be His Body, His corporate expression.

This is the truth in God’s word, this is the faith, and this is what we fight for.

We don’t fight for any creed or religion, nor do we fight for “Christianity” as a thing; we fight for the faith that has been delivered to us once and for all, the very things that we believe into.

The greatest truth in the universe is that Jesus Christ, God incarnated, died on the cross to redeem us from our sins and was resurrected to be the life-giving Spirit coming into our spirit to regenerate us and make us children of God.

He sacrificed His own life for us to become His Body, His increase, the church as the multiplication and duplication of Christ.

We have seen this truth, we believe in this, and we fight the good fight of the faith.

To fight for the faith means to fight for God’s New Testament economy.

In particular, it is to fight for Christ as the embodiment of God and for the church as the Body of Christ (Col. 2:9; 1 Cor. 1:2; 12:27).

We fight for Christ and the church. Christ is not only our Savior; He is the One in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily.

He is the all-inclusive and extensive One, and He is the centrality and universality of God and of the universe.

He has unsearchable riches, which we cannot exhaust.

We should know Him, enjoy Him, experience Him, and express Him.

We uplift this Christ, we love this Christ, and we enjoy and experience Him.

We don’t uplift any other person or thing: we only uplift Christ. And we also fight for the church, the body of Christ.

The church is not just a gathering of the believers in Christ but the Body of Christ, the increase of Christ, and the corporate expression of Christ.

We fight the good fight of the faith by fighting for Christ and the church.

To fight the good fight of the faith is to fight for the contents of the complete gospel according to God’s New Testament economy (Eph. 3:6).

Because of so many different teachings that came into the church throughout the ages, the church had already become degraded and had deviated from the faith.

The apostle Paul charged Timothy to fight against this deviation from the faith, and this is to fight the good fight of the faith.

We cannot deny that the church today is degraded and in deviation; there are so many different teachings all around us.

If we’re not clear about God’s economy, it is very easy for us to be trapped into different teachings.

May we fight the good fight of the faith by first being clear concerning the faith and then speaking and emphasizing only God’s economy concerning Christ and the church.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming as God becoming man to be incarnated, dying on the cross for our redemption, being resurrected to become a life-giving Spirit, and come into us to regenerate us. Praise You, Lord Jesus, our Savior and our life! We believe into You. We believe that You are the Son of God who was incarnated to be a man like us. We believe that You died on the cross for our sins. We believe that You resurrected from the dead and became a life-giving Spirit. We believe that You came into us through regeneration to dwell in us and live in us. We believe that we are the church, the Body of Christ. We believe that You will soon return to rapture us to be with You for eternity as the New Jerusalem. Amen, Lord, we believe in the faith that was given to us once and for all, and we want to fight the good fight of the faith. We praise You for God’s New Testament economy concerning Christ and the church. We praise You for delivering this faith to us. We now fight for the faith by speaking and emphasizing only Christ and the church, the contents of God’s economy!

To Fight the Good Fight of the Faith is to Lay Hold on the Eternal Life – the Processed Triune God as our Life

1 Tim. 6:12 speaks of fighting the good fight of the faith; the way we do this is by laying hold on the eternal life, to which we were called and have confessed.

To fight the good fight of the faith we need to lay hold on the eternal life, to which we were called.

The eternal life is the divine life, the uncreated life of God, which is eternal.

It is not just the everlasting life, which is eternal in time, but the eternal life, the divine life of God we received at the time of our regeneration.

In our Christian life and especially in our Christian ministry we need to lay hold on the eternal life and not trust in our human life.

In 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus the eternal life is stressed again and again.

In order to bring forth God’s dispensation concerning the church, we need the eternal life (1 Tim. 1:16; 6:19).

In order for us to confront the process of the decline of the church, we need the eternal life (2 Tim. 1:1, 10).

In order for us to maintain a good order in the church life, the eternal life is a prerequisite (Titus 1:2; 3:7).

The eternal life is actually the processed and consummated Triune God being life to us (John 3:15-16).

This life refers not to a future blessing, a kind of power or an exciting life after this one, but it is the Triune God who went through a process and was consummated to be our life.

1 John 5:11 says that he who has the Son has the life.

Life is not a feeling or a matter; life is a person, the Son of God – God Himself being our life.

The eternal economy of God reveals that the Triune God became flesh, passed through human living, was crucified, and was resurrected after three days.

He became a life-giving Spirit, and when we opened to the Lord and believed into Him, we received the eternal life.

Now we need to lay hold on the eternal life.

Eternal denotes nature more than the time element of the divine life (1 John 5:11).

It is not just everlasting; it is incorruptible in nature.

Even though there are different teachings today, in the age of the degradation of the church, there is the eternal life, the incorruptible life, in our spirit, and we fight the good fight of the faith by laying hold on the eternal life.

Our fellow brothers and sisters who are part of a system in Christianity may believe this and hold dearly to that doctrine, but each one of them has the eternal life in them; if they lay hold on the eternal life, they will be saved from degradation and decline.

May we live not only in what we see outwardly, what is temporary, but in what is incorruptible, the divine life.

May we lay hold on the eternal life by exercising our spirit to live by the divine life and doing all things in this life and by this life.

As those who would fight the good fight, we need to lay hold on eternal life.

We fight the good fight of the faith in the Christian life by laying hold of this divine life and by not trusting in our human life (Matt. 16:25-26).

To lay hold on the eternal life means that our living and daily walk is controlled, guided by, and constrained by the divine life.

What controls our Christian life and what guides our daily living is not a set of Scriptural rules and regulations but the eternal life.

It is not just ethics and morality, nor is it even spirituality that guides us and governs us; rather, it is the eternal life of God that governs us and controls us.

Just as the sun is the centre and all planets in the solar system orbit around it, so the eternal life is the centre and everything in our Christian life and church life orbits around it.

Our Christian life and church life have a centre: Christ as the eternal life in our spirit.

If we don’t have Christ as life as the centre of our life, we are aimless, without a direction.

We fight the good fight of the faith not only objectively but also subjectively by laying hold on the eternal life.

The enemy, however, is very subtle; he brings in good teachings, even scriptural, fundamental, good, ethical, and moral teachings, to distract us from the eternal life.

What is wrong with teachings related to the improvement of character and concerning making up our mind to do good things?

What is wrong with teachings concerning the proper upbringing of the children and having a good order in the church?

Unless the eternal life to which we lay hold is the centre of all these teachings, they can be used by the enemy to bring in degradation and decline in the church.

We need to realize that all the matters in the New Testament concerning us, the believers in Christ, are related to the dispensing of the processed Triune God into us.

We need to experience the divine dispensing by enjoying the eternal life and living by the eternal life.

Nothing should distract us from enjoying God in Christ as our life, and nothing should cause us to depart from partaking of the riches of Christ in spirit.

Because even fundamental teachings may be subtly used by the enemy to keep us from enjoying eternal life, we need to lay hold on the eternal life.

Then we will be able to fight the good fight for the faith. It’s good to bring this matter to the Lord, especially as the decline of the church is deepening and the degradation becomes darker and darker, and just tell Him,

Lord Jesus, we want to lay hold on the eternal life today. Thank You for coming into us as life. Hallelujah, God went through the process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection to become a life-giving Spirit, and by believing into Him we can receive the eternal life! Amen, Lord, we want to lay hold on the eternal life by enjoying You as life and by living by this life. We do not trust in our natural, human life; we simply want to lay hold of the eternal life to which we were called. May we fight and reject any distractions from the enjoyment of the processed Triune God as our life. Oh Lord, keep us open to Your divine dispensing. We want to contact You again and again, keeping our being open to Your divine dispensing day by day. Dispense Yourself into us a little more today. Transform us into Your image. Flow in all the parts of our being and be expressed through us. Flow in us and flow out of us as eternal life.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament (pp. 1863-1864), by Witness Lee (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Fighting the Good Fight, Finishing the Course, Keeping the Faith, and Loving the Lord’s Appearing in Order to Receive the Reward of Christ as the Crown of Righteousness (2023 ICSC), week 1, Fighting the Good Fight.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Eternal Life in the Gospel of John, article by John Pester via, Affirmation and Critique.
  – What is our understanding concerning the truths of the Triune God, God’s salvation in life, and the ground of the church, and why do they matter? More via, Living to Him.
  – What is eternal life? Read more via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – Laying hold on eternal life, a portion from, Life-Study of 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon, Chapter 12, by Witness Lee.
  – Revelation is a Book of Eternal Life, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – Statement of Faith, via, Affirmation and Critique.
  – The oneness of the faith, a portion from, Enjoying the Riches of Christ for the Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ, Chapter 14, by Witness Lee.
  – God’s Love for Us Is Unfathomable, via, Bibles for America blog.
  – A soldier, a contender, a husbandman, a portion from, Life-Study of 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon, Chapter 15, by Witness Lee.
  – Message Four – Fighting the Good Fight, Finishing the Course, and Loving the Lord’s Appearing, a sharing via, HeavenlyFoods.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Fight the good fight with all thy might! / Christ is thy strength, and Christ thy right; / Lay hold on life, and it shall be / Thy joy and crown eternally. / Run the straight race through God’s good grace, / Lift up thine eyes, and seek His face; / Life with its way before us lies, / Christ is the path, and Christ the prize. (Hymns #872 stanzas 1-2)
  – In those regenerated by the Lord / There is an inner knowledge bountiful; / Thus we the outward teachings do not need, / But God we inwardly may know in full. / Eternal life, the highest and the best, / Possesses full divine capacity, / That by this life God’s knowledge we may have / More than by knowledge given outwardly. (Hymns #739 stanzas 1-2)
  – Given us, given us, God has given us / Precious faith, power divine, greatest promises. / We believed, we received, now we have all three; / By these we may grow unto maturity. / Precious faith in each saint, precious equally, / Precious faith holding us, holding ceaselessly. / Disagree or agree, still it holds us fast, / Day by day, eternally this faith shall last. (Hymns #1211 stanzas 1-2)