Get Up and Fight!

 Today, I could tell you an inspirational story, but we’ve all heard those stories. There are thousands of inspirational stories. Stories of skydivers and mountain climbers who broke nearly every bone in their bodies and who crawled or dragged themselves for miles until being rescued. Stories of outdoorsmen, hunters, and hikers who survived horrific falls and maulings by wild animals. Stories of POWs who endured years of torture, beatings, and starvation.

You’ve all heard them, or stories like them. You’ve all heard stories of people who refused to give up in the face of impossible odds.

But today, it’s not time for another story. It’s time to stop and evaluate where we are in life, where we want to be, and how badly we want to get there.

We live in a society of quitters. People quit whenever life gets hard, and not only when it gets hard, but even when it gets slightly inconvenient.

People quit on their jobs, on their marriages, and on God. People discover that obeying God isn’t easy, so they stop trying. They find that marriage isn’t the life of ease and bliss they imagined, so they give up and look for someone else, or run back home to Mommy.

This is a shame. Quitters will never feel the thrill of a hard-won victory. They will never know what it feels like to prevail after all seems lost.

Life will knock you down many times. You will fail over and over. In your walk with God, you will stumble and fall again and again.

When this happens, you have two choices: stay down and wallow in self-pity, or get up and fight harder.

How much do you want to succeed? How badly do you want to be in God’s Kingdom? Are you willing to persevere through difficulty? Through ease and comfort? Boredom? Temptation? We encounter each of these in life, each a challenge in its own way. It’s easy to get discouraged, distracted, or discontented.

God gives each of us an opportunity to be in His Kingdom, but the path to get there isn’t easy. Eternal life lies at the end of a long and difficult road.

Jesus Christ told us, “Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Mat. 7:14). The Apostle Paul wrote, “For we do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, of our trouble which came to us in Asia: that we were burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that we despaired even of life” (2 Cor. 1:8).

Heb. 11:35-38 tells us this about God’s faithful servants:

35 Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.

36 Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.

37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented—

38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.

As Paul wrote to Timothy, “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ” (2 Tim. 2:3).

This is the life to which God has called you. Can you endure hardship? Can you be “burdened beyond measure, above strength, so that” you despair “even of life”? Is God’s Kingdom worth that to you?

Are you willing to lose everything you have to follow God? Are you willing to lose your job so you can keep the Sabbath? Are you willing to give up every friend and family member in your life, if necessary, for God’s Kingdom?

If we can’t do these things, we won’t be in God’s Kingdom! Yeshua/Jesus warned in Mat. 10:37-39, “He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.”

Is God’s way of life just a religious preference to you? Is the Sabbath just a day you go to church if you feel like it? Are God’s commandments just nice suggestions? If this is true for any of us, then it’s time to reevaluate our priorities, because we’re way off course!

The question is, Does difficulty make you want to quit? Does failure discourage you? Or does each failure and each stumble fill you with a greater resolve to succeed?

In the bleak early days of World War II, Winston Churchill told the British people, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” But your God DOES have something to offer you if you endure the blood, toil, tears, and sweat!

What God offers you is infinitely more valuable than anything He asks you to give up. It’s well worth anything He asks you to endure. But you have to recognize this and align your priorities accordingly!

Jesus told us, “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it” (Mat. 13:44-46).

When you have an inkling of the value of your calling, and of God’s Kingdom that awaits you on the other side of your trials and tribulations, you will be better prepared to endure hardship. Each time you fall, you will have a reason to get back up and fight harder than ever.

When God sees that you truly want Him with all your heart, that you’ll do anything He requires of you, and that you have no other gods before Him, then He will help you. As He tells us in Jer. 29:12-13, “Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Again, in Deut. 4:29-31, we read,

29 But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

30 When you are in distress, and all these things come upon you in the latter days, when you turn to the LORD your God and obey His voice

31 (for the LORD your God is a merciful God), He will not forsake you nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant of your fathers which He swore to them.

In the same vein, Jesus Christ told us in Mat. 7:7, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

Therefore, you have to give your all to God. You have to fight and strive for the Kingdom of God with every fiber of your being. “Contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). You must, like a grappler, “fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life” (1 Tim. 6:12).

When you’re too discouraged to pray, that’s when you need to pray all the more. When you don’t feel like studying God’s Word, that’s when you need to study all the more. When you don’t feel worthy to attend Sabbath services, that’s when you need to attend all the more.

Remember, no one is “worthy” of being in God’s presence. We could never be worthy, and apart from Jesus’ sacrifice, we could never make it into God’s Kingdom. God knows you aren’t perfect, but He wants you to give Him your all, your whole self.

When you feel like quitting, start singing like Paul and Silas. “And when they had laid many stripes on [Paul and Silas], they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them” (Acts 16:23-25).

The Apostle James reminded us, “My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful” (Jam. 5:10-11).

Heb. 12:1 tells us, “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

When every cell in your body is screaming at you to stop, to give up the race, to quit and take a break, that’s when you tell yourself, “Just a little more. Just a little further.” And when you’ve gone a little further, keep going a little further yet!

But the race is more bearable, the struggles a little easier, if we don’t dread them. Learn to run (or crawl, if necessary) with joy, knowing that with each step, you’re drawing closer to the prize. “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (Jam. 1:2-4). “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Rom. 5:3-4).

When you get knocked down, get back up. “A righteous man may fall seven times and rise again” (Prov. 24:16). “Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; when I fall, I will arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me” (Mic. 7:8).

As boxing champ Floyd Patterson once mused, “They said I was the fighter who got knocked down the most, but I also got up the most.” A born fighter will not quit. To every champion, the fight is never over as long as he can still stand up and lift his fists at least waist-high.

Of such men, the Apostle Paul said, “Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown” (1 Cor. 9:25). How much more, then, should we fight for our imperishable crown? How much more should we get back up every time we get knocked down?

If you stumble and fall, get up. If life knocks you down 5,000 times, get up and try again 5,001 times. If you give in to temptation and sin, don’t stay down and wallow in it. Get up and try harder. Every time you fall, get up with more resolve than ever before.

If your spouse leaves you or your family disowns you or you lose your job because you won’t compromise God’s way of life, don’t stay down and feel sorry for yourself. Get up. Lay hold on eternal life! If you haven’t prayed today, pray now. If you haven’t studied your Bible today, study now.

Whatever happened yesterday, today is a new day. Press on. Whatever happened five minutes ago, press forward the rest of the day.

When you were a toddler learning to walk, you failed many times. You fell down again and again. And each time you fell, you got back up and tried again until at last you could walk.

So it is today. Every time you fall, you can lie there and cry, or you can get back up and try again. And again. And again. Until at last you succeed.

Satan wants you to quit. He wants you to give up on obeying God, to give up on eternal life. He wants you to spiritually lie down and die.

Every time you don’t feel like praying, don’t feel like studying, don’t feel like keeping the Sabbath, don’t feel like trying anymore, Satan will be there whispering in your ear, “That’s right. Don’t try. It’s not worth it.”

Every time you fall, Satan will be there whispering, “You can’t do it. It’s not worth it. Just stay down.”

Don’t listen to him. Get up. Stand up and fight! As the old hymn says, “Stand up, stand up for Jesus!”

Lay hold on God’s Kingdom and never let go. Winston Churchill spoke of a different struggle, but his words ring true for ours: “You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.”

Isa. 55:6-7 tells us, “Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.”

God’s help enables us to get through the difficulties, the good times, the boredom, and the temptations alike. It helps us get back up every time we fall, as long as we try. Through God’s help, we can say, with the Apostle Paul, “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:8-9).

It doesn’t matter where you are now. It doesn’t matter if you’re sprawled flat on your back gasping for breath at this very moment. What are you going to do next? Are you going to stay down, or are you going to get up and fight harder?

Here’s Heb. 12:12-15: “Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God.”

Again, in Heb. 10:32-39, we find,

32 But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings:

33 partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated;

34 for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.

35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.

36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:

​37 ​​“For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry.

38 ​​Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, ​​My soul has no pleasure in him.”​

39 But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

Don’t give up. Don’t look back to your old way of life. Don’t sit down and take a break. Push on.

There are few guarantees in this physical life. As the saying goes, “Nothing is certain but death and taxes.”

But it’s not like that with God and His way of life. We are guaranteed — guaranteed — of victory if we persevere! “He who endures to the end shall be saved” (Mat. 10:22; 24:13; Mark 13:13).

Rom. 8:35-39 tells us,

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

36 As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come,

39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

God will never give up on us. Let us never give up on Him!

Will you fight the good fight until you draw your last breath? Will you finish the race? Will you endure to the end?

Will you stand before God’s throne and hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant”?