ICS Daily Devotions
Set Our Eyes On The Crown
2 Tim 4:7-8 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.
In the race we must endure to the end in faith, or we will not gain the crown. “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is laid up a crown of righteousness for me.” You can run five miles, ten miles, or twenty miles in a marathon, but if you don’t cross the finish line you don’t get the crown.
2 Tim 4:17-18 But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.18 And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen!
We have two great weapons to resist and assail the enemies of old self and Satan: the Spirit of God and the Word of God. And these always fight together, for the Spirit uses the Word to do His mighty works. Paul says in Ephesians 6:17, “The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.” The Spirit wields the Word. The fight of faith is fought with the Word of God. Happy is the man who has a promise of God ready to counter every satanic suggestion saying that life would be better if we stopped trusting Christ.
As an example, a missionary was called to a certain country where prostitution was common in every town. He moved into the town with his wife and two children. He was ministering to the local people, was tempted and fell into adultery. He left his wife and two young children. The devil was out to destroy him. It is a fight of faith.
Concerning our other enemy, namely ourselves, our old nature or our flesh as Paul often calls it, the word is, “reckon it as dead” (Romans 6:11). Whenever it rouses its ugly head, chop it off with the sword of the Spirit. Romans 8:13 says, “If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.” So when Paul says that keeping the faith is like a fight and a race, he reminds us that there remains the flesh in all of us to make faith a struggle.
Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.
It is not always easy to trust the word of Christ because there remains in us that old tendency to trust ourselves, to lean on our own understanding and to seek our own glory. That is the first thing implied in the pictures of the fight and the race: keeping the faith, keeping on taking Christ at His word and trusting His promises is hard as long as our old self-reliant nature rears its ugly head.
Luke 16:13 “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”
2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness?
Many who choose to marry an unbeliever know that it is wrong because their values, principles and worldview are completely different and they carry with them baggage from the past. It is a potential case of breakup. Many of these believers who are unequally yoked with unbelievers give up their faith by worshipping their spouse god after compromising with the truth.
When we are living in the world where, without exception, the values are really questionable today in every country, inevitably the devil will inevitably definitely tempt us. There will be many opportunities where he will try to wreck our family whenever we are alone, especially when we are travelling and there is no accountability partner. It is truly a fight of faith to resist the devil, to put down our flesh and hold on to Christ and the faith that we profess and the covenant that we have established with our spouse.
Let’s set our eyes on the crown of righteousness He has prepared for us and keep His words in our hearts as swords when faced with temptations of this fallen world.
Sermon Series: Finishing Well
