I received the latest edition of Christianity Yesterday the other day and on the inside of the front cover is a great little piece by J.C. Ryle entitled, Fighting the Good Fight. Here it is:
True Christianity is a fight and a warfare. If we would be saved and go to heaven when we die, let us all distinctly understand that while we live we must do battle. True Christianity! Mind that word "true." Let there be no mistake about my meaning. There is a vast quantity of religion current in the world which is not true, genuine Christianity. It passes muster, it satisfies sleepy consciences; but it is not good money. It is not the real thing which was called Christianity eighteen hundred years ago.
There are thousands of men and women who go to churches and chapels every Sunday, and call themselves Christians. Their names are in the baptismal register. They are reckoned Christians while they live. They are married with a Christian marriage service. They are buried as Christians when they die. But you never see any "fight" about their religion! Of spiritual strife, and of exertion, and conflict, and self-denial, and watching, and warring, they know literally nothing at all.
Such Christianity may satisfy man; and those who say anything against it may be thought very hard and uncharitable; but it certainly is not the Christianity of the Bible. It is not the religion which the Lord Jesus founded, and His apostles preached. True Christianity is a "fight and a battle." The true Christian is called to be a soldier, and must behave as such from the day of his conversion to the day of his death. He is not meant to live a life of religious ease, indolence, and security. He must never imagine for a moment that he can sleep and doze along the way to heaven, like one traveling in an easy carriage. If he takes his standard of Christianity from the children of this world he may be content with such notions; but he will find no countenance for them in the word of God. If the Bible is the rule of his faith and practice, he will find his lines laid down very plainly in this matter. He must "fight and do battle."
The principal fight of the Christian is with the world, the flesh and the devil. These are his never-dying foes. These are the three chief enemies against whom he must wage war. Unless he gets the victory over these three all other victories are useless and vain. If he had a nature like an angel, and were not a fallen creature, the warfare would not be so essential. But with a corrupt heart, a busy devil, and an ensnaring world, he must either "fight" or be lost. What saith the Scripture? "Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life." "Endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ."