Just started reading a book by Gary Thomas, The Beautiful Fight. My favorite so far. Deeply stirring. If you only join me in reading one of my sabbatical books. You would do well to choose this one. Here is one quote…

“Most of us have heard the modern translation of 2 Timothy 4:7 that says, ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.’ The Orthodox fathers looked at this passage in a different way. They translated the reading like this, ‘I have fought the beautiful fight.'”

The Beautiful Fight — I wonder if most of us have become too comfortable with our faith? Or complacent with our spirituality? Or maybe we’ve lost our sense of the grandeur of the call of God to become like Jesus — worldchangers. We come to church, we go to lifegroup, we learn and discuss and perhaps even get inspired…but if we do not do…anything. Is our faith really — as Paul said — the only race worth running?

One last quote, then I’m going to bed!

In fact, what really drew people to the Christian faith in the first century was the way of life modeled by its adherents — the reality of the presence of God in Christian lives. People saw how these Christ-followers lived differently — how they treated others differently — and their changed lives provided compelling evidence for the supremacy of Jesus’ claims.

So that’s the question I go to sleep with in my head and heart, “Is my life providing compelling evidence for the supremacy of Jesus’ claims. That is the beautiful fight!