Fight the Good Fight

With so many people who are spiritual seeking to distance themselves from the confusing image that is connected to Christianity today, we still have to fight the good fight!   The book entitled, The Rise of the Nones, by James Emmery White vividly describes the people who are distancing themselves from what is really cultural Christianity. I content that distancing ourselves from who we really are and trying to blend into nothingness does not correct our problems.  We must seek to better understand and establish New Testament Christianity in America verses the cultural Christianity that dominates the airwaves, television, churches, politics, and communities around America today.  Jesus has not changed the fact that we are salt and light (Matt. 5:11-16). In a similar context where some Christian false teachers were teaching strange doctrine and turning away from absolute truth and turned to fruitless discussions, Paul told the young Pastor Timothy to fight the good fight. Since there is nothing new under the sun, we can see the backdrop and the future for the "Rise if the Nones" in Rom. 1:18-32. In July AD 64, when the Emperor Nero blamed the fire in Rome on Christians and tried to marr the image of "Christians" and persecuted Christians with horrible torture and executions, the early Christians did not try to disassociate themselves with Christianity, but continued to fight the good fight. The persecuted church in Africa and the Christians struggling to spread the gospel in the mist of the crisis in the Ukraine, must go beyond what the American "None" is feelings and engage in the dangerous, yet rewarding work of spreading the good news about Jesus. Followers of the Way, my fellow Christians, we must fight the good fight in America and around the world. Fighting the good fight involves understanding the trends, and fighting to be who God made us through the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus, the Christ: (I Tim 1:18-19) 18.... Fight the good fight..... 19 keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. (I Tim 6:12-16) 12 Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate,

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14 that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which He will bring about at the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of Lords,

16 who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen. God Bless, Pastor Kennedy (MZO)