Fight: 50 meditations on faith that keeps swinging

FIGHT

50 meditations on faith

that keeps swinging

Kory M. Capps

Copyright @ 2024 From the Fray

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

From the Fray Publishing

8103 Stonefield Way

Tampa, FL 33635

www.fromthefray.com

Dedicated to my oldest, Karter.

You are a young man that stays in the ring, no matter the challenge.

You embody the heart and message of this book and I’m deeply proud of you, son.

Acknowledgments

To Elizabeth, my beautiful wife, best friend, and faithful battle-buddy: Your unwavering support and encouragement mean the world to me, beyond what words can fully convey. Thank you for journeying alongside me in crafting this book, offering your invaluable insights, and providing your guidance. You are the definition of strong. I’m amazed by your gritty, rugged faith. I love you.

To Jonny and Hudson: In more ways than I can express, you have taught me to fight, to keep getting up, to never quit. I love you both. To my baby girl, Adele: Little, you inspire me with your fierce spirit, protective heart, and relentless joy. You are truly a fighter. Your encouragement throughout the writing process, your inspiring creativity, and the way you celebrate reaching the finish line with me mean the world. I love you.

To my Mom and Dad, thank you for your love, encouragement, and support through the years. You epitomize the essence of this book. You are the grittiest people I know. You have fought the fight; you have kept the faith. I love you.

To my brothers, Tony, Jeff, and Kelly: This title might lead you to expect a tale about four brothers coming up together, wrestling, camping, biking, road-tripping, suffocating each other with couch cushions, laughing, playing Dutch Blitz, and perhaps leaving someone—whose name will remain unspoken—out in the snow in their underwear on Christmas day. And while this isn’t that book, we are where we come from. Each of you has shaped me in ways that continue to influence not only my life today but also the undercurrent of this and other projects. I am certain, I have not thanked you enough. I love you all.

To my fellow warrior shepherd in the ministry trenches, Bill Mesaeh: It’s humbling to see our From the Fray vision take shape after all these years. Your investment in my life and your influence on my work and ministry are invaluable. My brother, stay the course, and never forget: we give hope to men and keep none for ourselves. I love you.

Once again, a big thanks to everyone on the Fiverr team who worked on this project. Special thanks to Goran T., my go-to publishing manager, who oversaw the cover, and manuscript. Lastly, thanks to my Ingram Spark team for consistently delivering excellent publishing work. I'd like to give a special shout-out to Ben Gass, whose exceptional support has been invaluable on multiple projects, including this one.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1   God’s Military Campaign Against Death

2   The Considerate God

3   The Danger of the Cross and the  Safety it Affords

4   The Righteousness We Need is  Beyond Ourselves

5   A Cruciform Generosity: The God  who Gives All

6   Take Yourself in Hand:  A Call for Rigorous Self-Talk

7   The One Unchanging and  Unending Good

8   Hallowed Be Thy Gains: Getting  After Spiritual Fitness

9   Taking the Golden Rule to Heart,  and Everywhere Else

10   The Power of the Personal Pronoun

11   Know Your Enemy: A Short Theology  of the Devil

12   Learning to Keep to the Present

13   Our Infinite Capacity for  Taking Things for Granted

14   The Forsaken Places are Where  He Chooses to Go

15   Faith and Grit: How the Gospel  Creates Strength

16   Forced to Rest: God’s Commands  as Necessary Gifts

17   Sacred Uprising: The Cross as  God's Powerful Protest

18   Living, Active, and Sharp:  The Penetrating Word of God

19   The Most Important Thing About Us

20   The News We Must Laugh and  Be Glad Over

21   Fear Makes Life Small

22   The Youthfulness of God: Learning  from our Kids

23   The God of Encouragement

24   Mirror and Neighbor: Encouragement Under our Noses

25   Rescued from Wrath: The Encouragement of the Cross

26   You are Not an Island: Encouragement  and Community

27   Last Chapter, Best Chapter:  The Hope of Christ’s Return

28   Contaminated By Responsible Action

29   Unexpected Majesty: The Maker  of Man Becomes One

30   Own It: Living a Life of Persistent Repentance

31   The Freedom to Forget Yourself

32   A Million Boring Little Things

33   The Alphabet of Pain, the Language  of Sorrow

34   Listening: Our First Duty to  God and Neighbor

35   Jesus is the Address of God

36   I Will Not Forget You

37   Learning from the Weird Stuff in the Bible

38   Resilient Joy: Unmoved by  Circumstance and Sorrow

39   Divine Proximity: Closer to God,  Closer to Joy

40   If We Want to Get Wet, We  Must Get into the Water

41   God’s Word Does What it Says

42   Vigorous, Brave, and Invincible:  The Fruit of Assurance

43   No Shadow and Not One  Hint of Darkness

44   The God of the Impossible and  the Laughter of Faith

45   The Privilege of Daily Labor and  the Gift of Daily Bread

46   Today’s Trouble Meets Today’s Mercy

47   The Gospel’s Power to Fulfill  Its Own Demands

48   Fighting for Our Lives through  the Lord’s Prayer

49   Not Explaining Pain, Enduring It

50   Cutting through the Fog to the Shore

Introduction

Fight the good fight of faith.

(1 Timothy 6:12)

After twenty-one years of professional fighting, an undefeated record, and fifteen major world championships, Floyd Mayweather Jr. said, boxing is easy, life is much harder. I can't speak to a career in the ring, but I do know that the battles we wage as human beings—whether as spouses, parents, employees, or friends—are just as real and sometimes even more rigorous than a boxing match.

In the ring, victory might be claimed within a defined timeframe, but the battles we face as individuals extend far beyond any ring or arena. For me, the wounds stemming from these life battles—whether relational, emotional, or spiritual—cut deeper into my soul than any broken bone ever could. Perhaps you can relate.

This is precisely why fight language is a fitting description of life. It is also the explanation for the old-fashioned fistfight being a prism through which to see faith. But how is it a lens for faith? What God says and what we feel rarely line up. God's Word says he is working for our good, yet we may wonder how it can be true as we watch our family members suffer, our health deteriorate, or our loved ones die.

God's Word says we are clean and forgiven; we feel guilty and unworthy. God's Word says we are chosen and accepted; we feel lonely and rejected. The fight of faith pushes past our emotions to what God says. This doesn't just happen; we have to fight for it.

The fight of faith is also a battle against our greatest adversaries—Satan, sin, death, and hell. These eternal enemies pose the gravest threat to our well-being, whether we recognize it or not.

They threaten to unravel us and our only hope to conquer them lies outside ourselves in Jesus Christ. He confronts each of these threats through his life, death, and resurrection, effectively removing each from harming us.

We battle to believe what Jesus has done for us; this is how we overcome (1 Jn 5:5, Rev 12:11). To put on the armor of God is to be clothed and hidden in what Christ has done for us (Eph 6:10-20, Is 59:16-17); it is to rest in his finished work. The gospel, the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection, is how we fight—we press into it, trust it, believe it, hope in it, return to it, cling to it, and strive to never let it go.

Any good fighter must condition, train, hone their skills, and learn from their losses. When every night is fight-night, we must be ready to go. Any good faith training regimen will include these five things:

1. Condition, Condition, Condition- Fighting takes training, practice and rigor. Step into the ring with no conditioning, your downfall is certain. The fight of faith requires mastering the mechanics of hearing God’s Word, pressing his promises into our souls, and holding onto them with all our might (Rom 10:17, Heb 10:23, 1 Cor 15:2). Doing this intentionally, repeatedly, and strategically conditions us for war (1 Cor 9:26).

2. No Matter What, Keep Your Hands Up- One author said that life is war, that’s not all it is, but it is always that. The battle is always on for the Christian. A punch in the face is always just around the corner and the enemy’s opportune time is the moment we put our hands down (Lk 4:13). Peter’s call to vigilance is a call to remember life is a cage match (1 Pet 5:8). The moment our hands come down is the moment we are getting dominated. Keep your hands up.

3. Get Up Again and Again and Again- You’re going to get your nose broken, take heart–it means you are in the fight! Paul pointed to the scars on his body from following Jesus as signs of his battle worn faith (Gal 6:17), it’s no different for you. When you get smoked, get back up, keep swinging, don’t lay down. Internalize Micah’s fighting spirit: though I fall, I will rise (Mic 7:8) and realize that it has nothing to do with how many times you get dropped, it’s all about how much you get back up (Prov 24:16).¹ The grit of getting on your feet over and over again develops the muscles of faith, it engages the discipline of repentance, and it pushes us back to the gospel. Always get up, always.

4. Trust Your Corner Team- While it may appear that someone is in the ring alone, in reality there is an entire community surrounding them and a corner team coaching them. Don’t drop your hands! Move, Move, Move! Go for the body! Listen to their guidance and heed their instruction, they see things you don’t and they bring perspective that’s needed to weather every round. Further, they are there to pick you up, wipe your sweat and blood, heal up your wounds, and tell you to keep pushing (Eccl 4:9-10, Heb 3:12-14). Winning a fight is never a solo endeavor; trust your corner team.

5. Fight Like Hell- The stakes are high; we are fighting for our lives. The only way to fight hell is to fight like hell. Hell doesn’t quit, darkness never lets up, it’s ever-vigilant, always growing stronger, always getting more strategic, always coming. That’s how we have to fight—with rage like the evil one, perseverance like our sin, tenacity like our conscience, and unquenchable fire like hell. There’s too much on the line to enter the arena in any other way. Christ’s battle rigor won our salvation, ours is the fight to continue believing, trusting, and obeying