The Relentless Fight Workbook is now available!

I'm so excited to announce that The Relentless Fight Workbook is published and now available on Amazon! 

What is this new Workbook? It's not just a rehashing of all the same content from the original TRF book, published 5 years ago. It's not an AI-generated list of generic questions. Rather, it's a deeply interactive companion for sanctification. It's like weeks of mentorship meetings, praying and looking at Scripture together, and asking questions to get practical... taking all that, and converting it into paper and pen. It has the same core message as the original: Remember the Gospel and Keep Fighting. But there's not a lot of reading, it's mostly questions and lots of blank space to write out your thoughtful answers. 

If you know of people in your church, family, ministry, or friend group who are struggling with sin, feeling discouraged, and need some help in sanctification, would you please consider sharing with them about this new Workbook? 

Most importantly, would you please take a few minutes to pause and pray? 

• Please pray for God to deeply encourage people who go through this Workbook as they pray and read God's Word. 
• Please pray for God to empower people with the gospel and His Holy Spirit, to be able to say no to sin, and yes to Jesus. 
• Please pray for God to mightily equip Christians for the great fight of faith, with big picture strategies and battlefield tactics for sanctification.  

Overall, please pray for God to use this Workbook for the good spiritual growth of many people, that God would help them to remember the gospel, and keep fighting. Pray for God to use it for His greater glory. That's my eager desire and prayer. Thank you!

Book Review: Atomic Habits

"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." - Romans 12:2 (ESV)

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear is being highlighted here on The Relentless Fight because it could be used to equip you in the detailed practicals of sanctification. Mind you, it's a thoroughly secular book, there's no mention of the Bible or the gospel or repentance. And yet, just like a book on economics or medicine or architecture, it's a powerful tool when we redeem it through the lens of the Scriptures. When we start with the power of the gospel, and the goal of becoming like Christ, using these tools to create godly habits or stop sinful habits is not only effective, but glorifying to God. 

The backbone of Atomic Habits is what James Clear calls The Habit Loop (pages 46-52 from the book). He outlines this mental model with four parts to any habit (good or bad): 

Cue ---> Craving ---> Response ---> Reward. 

The cue is anything that prompts our desire, which leads to our action. Because the desire is fulfilled by the action, it feels satisfying, and reinforces the whole process. When this is repeated again and again, it becomes a habit, and is quickly ingrained in our lives. 

Here's a (sinful) example: You're feeling tired after a long week (cue), you want some rest and comfort (craving), so you look at porn (response), and experience a huge hit of dopamine (reward). Do that a few weeks, and you've got a life-dominating habit that's extremely hard to break. James 1:14-15 says it like this, "But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death." Jesus warns about the trap that habitual sin brings in John 8:34, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin." Ben Stuart summarizes it well, "What you think about, will be what you care about. And what you care about, you will chase." 

But the same is true of good habits. Consider this (godly) example: You wake up in the morning (cue), you want to start the day focused on Christ (craving), so you read the Word and pray for 1 hour (response), and your joy in salvation is stirred once again (reward). Do that a few weeks, and you've got a life-transforming habit that will lead to a life of godliness and spiritual fruit. Psalm 1:2 speaks of the righteous man, "but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night."

By understanding this pattern of human behavior, we can get insight into why and how we act, and therefore choose wisely what we feed and what we starve. The Bible uses the language of put off and put on. Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3 call us to put off the old self with our sins (bad habits) and to put on the new man in Christ (good habits). 

From this simple four-stage model for habits, James Clear has created The Four Laws of Behavior Change (page 53 from the book) which restates the four steps in these imperatives:

1. Make it obvious 

2. Make it attractive 

3. Make it easy 

4. Make it satisfying. 

In a sinful world, with sin dwelling in our hearts, and Satan's temptation, far too often sin is right in front of us (obvious), it looks great and we want it (attractive), it's almost effortless to do (easy), and in the moment it feels like it delivers on its promises (satisfying). That's why Romans 13:14 instructs us, "But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." Cut off the supply chain! Don't provide opportunity or resources for your sin. 

Taking this four-part model, applied to fighting sin, here is how to sabotage the process at each step: 

1. Make Sin Avoidable: What's the cue? Kill it. Is it a place? Stay away. Is it an app? Delete it. Do whatever you can to avoid even the awareness of temptation and sin. Make it hidden and turned off, locked up, as the old adage goes, "out of sight, out of mind." Proverbs 4:14-15 instructs us, "Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on." Don't underestimate your sin, thinking you'll be able to resist it. It's so much wiser to stop the fight before it starts. Flee! 

2. Make Sin Ugly: Memorize Scripture that speaks of the dangers of sin, like Galatians 6:7-8a, "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption..." Think about the consequences. Remember the guilt and shame that will surely come after the fleeting pleasure of sin. John Owen advises in The Mortification of Sin, "Do you find your corruption to begin to entangle your thoughts? Rise up with all your strength against it, with no less indignation than if it had fully accomplished what it aims at." (page 110)

3. Make Sin Difficult: Create obstacles that prevent you from acting out your sin. Get help from other Christians to interfere with your foolishness. Remove access by deleting apps, blocking websites, canceling subscriptions, and throwing things away. Be like Joseph in Genesis 39:10, "And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her."

4. Make Sin Painful: If you do indeed sin, then what can you do after the failure to repent and experience the pain of your sin? Sin always brings suffering, but often that suffering comes much later. What might be an immediate consequence? How can you introduce accountability? Paul Worcester gives one example here,  "I told my Dad that each time I gave into temptation I would give our Church $100!" 

That's putting off, the defensive fight. The Scripture likewise calls us to put on, the offensive fight. We must cultivate good habits like remembering the gospel, and relentless prayer. Let's break down the four steps with an example of a good habit that many Christians struggle with... daily Bible reading:

1. Plan for the Bible: Use the tool of "implementation intention" by writing out, "I will [ACTION] at [TIME] in [LOCATION]." Which might look like, "I will read one chapter of the Bible at 8am everyday at my breakfast table." Ben Stuart says in this video, you need "a time, a place, and a plan." As leadership gurus, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail." 

2. Enjoy the Bible: Do you like drinking coffee? Drink it while you read. Do you like going for a run? Listen to an audio Bible while you exercise. Do you like friends? Consider partnering up in the same Bible reading plan. But those are just earthly enjoyments. What about the spiritual benefits? Remind yourself of the mind-blowing rewards of the Scripture, like it says in 2 Timothy 3:16-17, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." Do you want to be equipped? Doesn't that promise stir your desire to read the Word? 

3. Make Bible reading EASY: Buy a Bible that you like reading (translation, weight, margins, even the color of the cover).  Put your Bible on your reading chair. Have your reading plan printed out and bookmarked on the next day's reading. Make the process as smooth as possible. If Satan is attacking you, trying to eat you, do what you can to defend against him! Identify whatever obstacles you are feeling and do what you can to eliminate those barriers. That probably means putting your smartphone in another room to minimize distraction.

4. Make Bible reading fun: Track your reading progress, perhaps with little x's on day squares on your reading plan (habit tracking). Eat a piece of candy for every chapter you finish. Reward yourself for streaks of 3 days in a row, 10 days in a row, or for finish lines like completing the Pentateuch. Spiritually, as you are increasingly satisfied in the morning with the steadfast love of the Lord, you will begin to love reading the Word simply for the Word itself. You will fall in love with the Author of the Word. You will be amazed at the simple fact: God wrote a book.

You might think these are worldly strategies, and we should read the Bible for more godly reasons? Maybe you object to these as fleshly tricks, as mere human precepts? But as people have studied people for centuries, they've discovered some pretty common patterns regarding human behavior. If these things are true, and they really work... then why not harness their power to kill sin and nurture righteousness? Why not apply the biblical command of "put off, put on" with some practical steps? Why not leverage these insights for greater holiness and enjoyment of Christ? 

That being said, your motivation for reading the Bible shouldn't be chocolate snacks, so let's land more firmly on those godly reasons. Let us pray that God gives us a craving for Him like in Psalm 63:1, "O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water." Let us pray that God empowers our obedience like in Colossians 1:10 to "walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God..." Let us remember the superior joy found only in Jesus. Nothing satisfies like the Lord! Everything else is a broken cistern. Psalm 16:11 says, "You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Let us fight to believe that Jesus is Better! 

Love and faith will drive your activity of Bible reading, prayer, and walking with the Spirit. Love for Jesus drives obedience, as He says in John 14:15, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." If we believe that God is satisfying, that will drive our pursuit of him, as Hebrews 11:6 says, "And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him." 

So let us fight to remember the gospel. Nothing else gives us joy like the gospel! The only reason we are able to enjoy the presence of God is because of the reconciliation offered to us by the Cross of Christ. Leverage these laws of behavior change from Atomic Habits for your greater joy in Jesus! Get the book, read it, and apply it to your Christian life for God's glory. 

All Scripture quotations are from the The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

The Reason Why You're Bored With the Bible

There are many reasons why you could be bored with the Bible. Maybe you have read the whole thing and already think you know what it says, so for you the repeat content is boring. Maybe you haven’t read much, but you’ve been in church enough times that you figure you know the basic gist… and it’s not something you want to hear more of. Maybe you just aren’t into books, and since the Bible is a book, therefore it’s boring. Maybe you’re into stories, and so all those Pauline epistles, poetry, and case laws in Deuteronomy… are boring! 

But I’d like to suggest one big reason why most people are bored with the Bible: because you are treating it like entertainment. 

Have you ever zoned out after reading a few sentences of the Bible? While you’re reading, are you tempted to pick up your phone to check your notifications for the 10th time? Do you regularly skip other things in order to play video games or watch that next show on Netflix? Have you ever binge-watched more than 3 episodes in a single sitting? Can you quote The Office better than you can quote Romans? 

Given the choice between reading an hour of the Bible, and playing an hour of video games… which would you more naturally choose? If someone looked at your schedule and calendar, what would they conclude you loved more: entertainment, or Jesus Christ? Let’s get crazy: Have you ever binge-read the Bible? Did you ever procrastinate on an assignment by reading the Bible? When you come to the end of a hard week, do you reward yourself with a long session of reading the Psalms? 

Our minds and hearts have been shaped by entertainment. And because the Bible isn’t “pew pew pew, superhero, scene change, boom explosion, scene change, pew pew pew, scene change, music, wow great finish!” ...we just get easily bored and distracted. We are so used to the image, the screen, the movie, the 20-minute episode that ends on an emotionally engaging cliffhanger that when we come to the BOOK it’s boring. The written Word is too slow. It doesn’t grip us. Our hearts respond with a yawn. Virtual love and digital danger seem more real to us than divine love and spiritual danger. We are so inundated with trivial (but titillating) entertainment that God's glory is obscured, as earthly banality has replaced God's beauty.

Tony Reinke, in his incisive book Competing Spectacles, explains this threat, "In sum, all my concerns are dwarfed by this one: boredom with Christ. In the digital age, monotony with Christ is the chief warning signal to alert us that the spectacles of this world are suffocating our hearts from the supreme Spectacle of the universe." (page 143) The classic sc-ifi book Fahrenheit 451 sounds a similar warning that entertainment will shrivel our minds, stunt our relationships, make us parochial, and enslave us to its thrills. 

Let’s look at the offramp to this suffocation and slavery of entertainment: The solution to your boredom is the gospel. 

The gospel is the most binge-worthy drama in the whole world. The gospel is the good news that we were made by God, rebelled against Him, deserved death, but that God loved us too much and desired to show us mercy, so He sent Christ to die in our place, to rescue us from our slavery to sin and forgive us of all our guilt and rebellion. Now we are reconciled to God, made new creations, and able to enjoy the infinite pleasures in His presence! THAT is good news. 

And the good news doesn’t just go in one ear and out the other, leaving our lives unchanged and unaffected. Titus 2:11-12 says, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age…” So God’s grace comes first, but then training come next. Grace motivates different habits. We renounce worldly passions, like binge-watching Disney+. We live self-controlled lives, not slaves to hours of video games.

So practically, if the Holy Spirit is convicting you as you’re reading this…. here are some steps to take:

1. Confess your sin to God. Admit that your heart loves entertainment more than it loves Jesus. Be honest with God that you are bored with Him. Ouch. 

2. Remember the gospel. You are forgiven of all your sin! Oh what good news that is. And it’s only good news if we really are guilty like in step #1, if we really have sinned against God. If there’s no sin, there’s no need for Jesus to die. The cross is for failures.

3. Put off that which suffocates your joy in Jesus. Make no provision for the flesh. Consider a fast from all entertainment (streaming shows, TV, video games, YouTube, movies, Fortnite, Minecraft, etc) for the 40 days of Lent (this year it starts 2/17, and goes until Easter). Yes that’s crazy. Yes it will feel like death. You might think, “what in the world will I do instead of those things…” which leads to #4.   

4. Put on that which cultivates joy in Jesus. Read the Word, binge the Bible. Pray for God to help you not be bored of the Bible. Then pray again. Pray with others. Prayer walk. Pray for unreached people groups. Pray for a friend. Listen to worship music, and sing along, loudly. Share the gospel with someone. Memorize a chapter of the Bible. Read a solid book about enjoying Jesus, like Habits of Grace. Serve others as you have been served by Jesus. Fight for joy in Christ. 

   
   

As you practice these things, I guarantee you it will not be as exciting and “pew pew pew” as entertainment, the same way that eating salad and beans isn’t as exciting as Pop Rocks and Mountain Dew. But pursuing God will satisfy your soul and give you greater joy than a hundred years of entertainment. Psalm 4:7, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.” Psalm 84:10a, “For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere."

God Himself is more satisfying than anything else, including all the best of today’s multi-million-dollar-budget entertainment. He’s the fountain of living waters, and everything else is just a broken cistern. The real God of the Bible is far superior to the fake god of entertainment. Jesus really is BETTER. Enjoy Him, don’t settle! 

What if you were so happy in Jesus that today’s entertainment was boring to you?

Don't Underestimate Your Sin

The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it. - Proverbs 22:3

There is a critical miscalculation that we must not make in the fight of faith: underestimating our own sin. 

Consider this military analogy: if you underestimate the enemy and overestimate your own strength, you will know an attack is coming, but do little to prepare for it. If your calculations were correct, you’ll be fine. But if your strength was not as great as you had thought, and the enemy was greater than you accounted for, you will suffer an incredible loss. To ensure victory, your army should do the opposite: overestimate the power of the enemy and underestimate your own strength. You will mount up a strong defense, prepare for a hard battle, call for reinforcements, and maybe even launch a counter-attack. The result? More likely you will enjoy victory, because you took the threat seriously and prepared accordingly. 

In the fight of faith, we are tempted to underestimate our own sin. This miscalculation is the fruit of at least three underlying problems: 

1. Pride: We overestimate our own strength. Proverbs 16:18 says, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” We think we’ll be able to resist temptation when it comes, we think we’ll be clever, we think we will have the self-control to win in our own strength. 
2. Deception: Sin lies to us. Hebrews 3:13 says, “But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” We don’t recognize how our sin is destroying us until it is too late. Instead, we become blind and numb to our own depravity; sin creates its own protective blindspots. Sin deceives, and then it hardens. 
3. Unbelief: We underestimate our own sin because of a lack of faith in the gospel. Underneath pride and deception is the most dangerous problem: unbelief. We are prone to forget the gospel. When we forget the gospel our faith shrivels, and it leaves us vulnerable. This is the decisive failure that will result in ceasing the fight against sin and becoming complacent. We won't even show up for the fight. 

What is the solution to these underlying problems? How do we avoid underestimating our sin? 

We must remember the gospel! Meditating on Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross will humble us by revealing our weakness and need of salvation; we could not save ourselves! The gospel brings a sharp wake-up call of truth to replace the deception that sin creates; sin is serious, Christ had to DIE for our sin! And the gospel stirs and strengthens our faith as we meditate on the object of our faith; Hebrews 12:1-2 calls us to set our eyes on Jesus as we run the race. 

Faith in Christ’s salvation results in humility and gratitude. In that humility and the power of the gospel, you’ll be able to fight your sin. But you won’t fight lazily—you’ll fight strongly because you’ve rightly evaluated your sin, seeing it through the eyes of God’s holiness.  In that gratitude, you’ll rejoice in what God has done for you in Christ. You’ll have a superior joy in Jesus that drowns out the fleeting pleasures of sin. Backed by the power of the Holy Spirit, you can put your sin to death. Romans 8:13 promises, “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” 

So practically here are some next steps:

1. Remember the gospel: Do whatever is necessary to remind yourself of the gospel. Your enemy is pride, deception, and unbelief! But the gospel will humble your heart, reorient your mind with truth, and strengthen your faith. Fight to remember the gospel. 
2. Expect difficulty: Don’t pridefully expect an easy fight. Rather, go into the fight against sin knowing that it will be hard, then you won’t be shocked when it is hard. Expect resistance, develop a wartime mentality! Prepare your mind for battle. Expect a hard, long, bloody fight. You must make war! 
3. Prepare in peacetime: When you are not currently under temptation and attack, take the opportunity to prepare for war. Memorize Scripture that can be accessed and used in time of temptation, as the antidote of truth against the poison of lies. Cultivate a superior affection for Jesus. Research your battlefield. Remove access to sin. Be ready for the fight so that when temptation comes, you can meet it with overwhelming firepower, and attain victory over your sin. 
4. Call out for help: If you rightly estimate the power of your sin, you will recognize your own insufficiency to fight it by yourself. First call out to God, He will come to your aid! Pray relentlessly. Establish accountability, ask for help from others. If you know a particular weekend or evening is going to be a time of temptation, text a few Christian friends to ask them to pray for you and check in with you. And if help isn't available (or no one texts back), be prepared to flee with a tactical retreat. 

Don’t underestimate your sin. It’s a deadly miscalculation. But also, never underestimate your Savior! Your temptation might be crushing and your sin might be devastating, but it is no match for the awesome power of His strength and grace. You cannot overestimate His power because you cannot measure infinity! He is MIGHTY to save. Jeremiah 20:11 says, “But the Lord is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble; they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.” And the opposite is also true, the eternal glory of the cross of Christ will never fade. Fight to remember the gospel! 

Don’t Waste Your Coronavirus Season

"Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." - 2 Timothy 2:22

The advent of the Coronavirus pandemic has had major effects on our world. It has created incredible uncertainty and anxiety, and has resulted in closed workplaces and a new era of social distancing. (For the latest information on Coronavirus (COVID-19), please see the CDC website.)

The purpose of The Relentless Fight blog from the beginning has been to encourage, empower, and equip Christians for the great fight of faith. There are so many good articles and responses about this season (for a sampling, visit The Gospel Coalition) but here at TRF we wanted to focus on the fight of faith and the fight against sin.

You may be experiencing a big increase in time spent at home, uncertain of how long this season will last. Faced with this sudden openness in your schedule... what might happen? There really are two directions you can go with spending your time: wasting or investing.

• Wasting: It will be very easy to waste this season. Through boredom and social isolation, there's increased temptation to turn to entertainment, social media, video games, and various distractions. This Coronavirus season will reveal your heart. And one key place you'll see your heart displayed is in how you use your extra time. 
• Investing: You have an incredible opportunity for spiritual investment during this season! Perhaps life has slowed down now more than ever before. How will you use that extra time? Heed this challenge: use this time at home for intense spiritual activity. 

Here are some practical suggestions for how to spiritually invest in this season:

• Bible: There's only one book that God has written. That makes it worth reading! Read huge chunks of the Bible. Did you know it takes just 18 hours to read the whole New Testament? And the whole Bible takes about 74 hours (Crossway made a helpful infographic with time breakdowns). If you need some help getting started, check out this 6-min video by Ben Stuart on Practical Helps for Bible Reading. 
• Books: What a fantastic time to read more solid books to invigorate your spiritual growth! You can read book reviews here on The Relentless Fight for these titles: When I Don't Desire God, Side by Side, The Mortification of Sin, Competing Spectacles, and Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices. 
• Learn: If reading isn't your thing, there are so many ways to learn via audio and video teaching. Here's a few to start: TGC Courses, The Bible Project, and Look at the Book. 
• Serve: You can reach out to someone who is lonely and ask how you can pray for them and serve their practical needs. Philippians 2:1-4 calls us to consider others needs, not just our own. 
• Evangelize: This Coronavirus and its many effects are shaking our world, and there may be unique opportunities as people open up with spiritual interest. Here's a list of 10 ideas. Pray for gospel opportunities! And when God gives them.... be bold and speak the Word of life! Who knows, the Lord may just use this to bring revival to our broken world. 
• Pray: You might be facing extra anxiety and fear. That's understandable, these are wild times of uncertainty. Turn those worries into prayer! Pray for God's mercy in this pandemic. Pray for others who are affected. Pray for God to give you peace and increased faith in Christ. Pray relentlessly. 
• Make Disciples: Paul Worcester said it well in his open letter, Dear College Students: The Mission Isn't Canceled. Jesus commanded us in Matthew 28 to make disciples of all nations. That mission is NOT canceled! Whether you're a senior student or a senior citizen...if you are a Christian, you have a purpose: Jesus commissions you to make disciples. And this coronavirus does not stop that mission. 

You've probably heard the old adage, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail!" Practically, it may help you to come up with a "Coronavirus Season Plan" to maximize your spiritual growth during this time. Get a piece of paper or open a new note on your phone and write down some answers to these three questions:

1. What are your spiritual growth goals? 
2. What are going to be some time-wasting distractions? 
3. Who can you share this with for accountability and community help?

Here's the key question: 
....Who do you want to be at the end of this Coronavirus season? 

And above all, remember the gospel. The gospel is the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16). As one pastor put it, we live "in the the grip of a pandemic outbreak called sin. What is your hope in the face of that virus?" The answer is the gospel. Fight to remember the gospel! 

PS: Author Andy Cimbala created a 3-min video "How to Fight Temptation During Coronavirus Season" with some recommended free resources from The Relentless Fight during this time, view it on YouTube here:

YouTube Channel for The Relentless Fight

The Relentless Fight now has a YouTube channel! You can watch the videos and subscribe here.

Hopefully these videos will be used by God to encourage, empower, and equip you for the great fight of faith.

As of publication today, the channel is starting with these four new videos:

1. The Relentless Fight: New Book Promo Video
2. Why did you write this book?
3. What should I do right after a sinful failure? (based on the previous blog post Right After the Failure, featured as Appendix A in the book)
4. What’s the hope for the end of the fight? (based on the Conclusion: The End of the Fight from the book) 

Watch, share, and enjoy! And don't forget to subscribe, hopefully for more videos in the future. 

What videos would you like to see? What questions would you like to see answered on the channel? Comment below or on Facebook. 

Book Review: Competing Spectacles

"Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man." - Proverbs 27:20

Tony Reinke is a senior writer for Desiring God, author of several books, and host of the popular Ask Pastor John podcast. He wrote a fantastic book two years ago called 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You. His latest book asks, "What images should I feed my eyes?"

Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age is being highlighted here on The Relentless Fight because we need this clarion book. In our cultural soil of entertainment there grows an endless number of distractions from Jesus. We need to wake up to this insidious undertow, and fight to make Jesus our treasure. If we fail, we will be smothered not by the grossest explicit sins, but rather the deluge of high-quality, captivating, awe-inspiring ocular delights.

Here's a few highlights and ideas from the book:

• The Cross is the ultimate Spectacle: Of all the spectacles across history, and of the thousands that vie for our attention right now, the ultimate and greatest spectacle is Christ on the Cross. It is the divine Spectacle, the centerpiece of the Bible and of human history, and in heaven we will all see Christ and give Him worship as the Spectacle of our eternal delights. "Christ's glory is the spectacle of all other spectacles, and its power is most clearly seen in how it equips and motivates and animates our faithful obedience in all other areas of life." (page 90) The glory of Christ is preeminent, it gives us the highest delight, but it also motivates our obedience. If we remember the gospel, we will keep fighting. 
• Focusing on Christ will be a fight: The Spectacle of the Cross has many competitors for our attention. We will not be captivated with Christ as the default, and our attention will be ripped away with competing pleasures and delights. Therefore we must fight to look at Jesus! We should pray that God gives us faith to "see" the glories of the gospel. We must mount the counter-attack and fight to believe that Jesus is better. "Each of us must learn to preserve higher pleasures by revolting against lesser indulgences." (page 122) Does Jesus interest you? If not, you must fight for joy. We must fight relentlessly to remember the gospel, and "the recelebration and rearticulation of the glory of Christ must be set before us, over and over, and fed to our souls day by day." (page 91)
• Practically, learn to say no to competing spectacles: In this media age, perhaps repentance looks like digital detox and closing our eyes to the glories of entertainment. "Attention is the new commodity of power; the viral spectacle is the product. Which means that when we ignore a spectacle, we unplug its power." (page 126) When we give our attention to a thing, by default we must say no to a hundred other things. It's part of our limitation as humans, our attention is precious and can only be given to one thing at a time. To say yes to Christ means saying no again and again and again to hundreds of sparkling, attractive, shouting competitors. It will be a fight! Expect great difficulty. In Mark 4, Jesus tells a parable of thorny soil that chokes out the Word and makes it unfruitful. We live in an age of thorns; everywhere in our attention economy, our eyes are being bought and paid for. We are being marketed to and seduced and screamed at. When we hear the Word, it’s amidst the cacophony of louder noise of the cares of this world, and riches, and desires for other things (consumerism). So we can’t even hear Jesus anymore. He’s one voice, out of thousands. We must learn to say no to competing spectacles, so we can say yes to Jesus. What do you need to do differently this week, in order to hear Him? What event will you say no to, to say yes to church every Sunday? What entertainment will you say no to, in order to say yes to Bible study? What phone notifications and news stories and music will you have to say no to, in order to create the quiet and space in order to say yes to praying? How can you develop habits of saying no to competing spectacles? Perhaps you will fast from a certain viral movie or TV show that everyone is watching, and you want to watch too. This will strengthen the muscles of saying no. Perhaps you will delete the social media apps on your phone to limit your enticements. Maybe you'll delete your Netflix subscription. Do whatever it takes to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh. 

Reinke concludes with this key point, "In sum, all my concerns are dwarfed by this one: boredom with Christ. In the digital age, monotony with Christ is the chief warning signal to alert us that the spectacles of this world are suffocating our hearts from the supreme Spectacle of the universe." (page 143) Amen. If we forget the gospel, it will not be because we don't have access to Christ. But it's because our attention has been so diverted, so disintegrated, so fractured, that we have but slivers to give to Him and His Word. It's the thorny soil choking the Word so it proves unfruitful. And when we forget the gospel, we will stop fighting our sin. "Soul boredom is a great threat, and when our souls become bored, we make peace with sin." (page 144)

In summary, Competing Spectacles: Treasuring Christ in the Media Age is highly recommended because our culture is guilty of worshiping the god of entertainment. This book wakes us up and shows us the exit ramp of repentance. May God help us fight to remember the gospel.

Note: Crossway provided a free ebook copy in exchange for this honest review, as part of their Blog Review Program. Win/win! 

The Book is Launched!

At long last, the book is published!

The Relentless Fight: The Power of the Gospel in the Fight Against Sin was launched one month ago on 2/11. It's available on paperback and Kindle ebook, published through Amazon KDP.

It is thrilling to see this project finally come to the finish line. The idea of the book is at least 9 years old. But it's been worth the wait! The response has been really good this first month, and we shall see what God does in this first year.

Here are some ideas you could do to help with the book launch:

• Post on social media about the book! Spread the word. Take a picture of the book yourself, or you could share these posts on Facebook or Twitter. 
• If a friend comes to mind that you think would be helped by the book, share about it personally with them. Word of mouth and a personal recommendation is so powerful!
• Give the book as a gift to your pastor, a small group leader, a college ministry leader, or your mentor.  If leaders emphasize the gospel as they are counseling others, how powerful will that be? 
• Read the book together and discuss it with your Sunday school class, community group, or accountability group. 
• Do you know someone who writes a Christian blog and might be interested in reviewing the book? Do you know someone who hosts a podcast and would like to do an interview? Consider making the connection, send a message via Facebook to The Relentless Fight.

But most importantly, would you please pray:

• Pray for God to be glorified through this little book.
• Pray for God to bring people to new faith in Christ. And pray for greater affection for those who already know Jesus. 
• Pray for God to use the book as a means of sanctification in the lives of Christians. Pray for increased holiness and victory over sin. Pray for addictions and idolatries and strongholds to be broken. 
• Pray that God creates transformed lives that result in more glory and praise given to God! "...call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." Psalm 50:15 ESV

Remember the Gospel,

The Relentless Fight

PS: As a thanks to the readers of this blog there's some special content just for you! Appendix D (not included in the book) contains videos and visual resources for remembering the gospel and fighting sin. Check out Appendix D here.

Book Review: Caring for One Another

"By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." - John 13:35 

Ed Welch has been counseling for over 30 years, and is a faculty member with the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF). He has written numerous in-depth books on counseling issues, but more recently has been distilling his long tenure of wisdom into digestible books for the church. This recent publication is just such a one.

Caring for One Another: 8 Ways to Cultivate Meaningful Relationships is being highlighted here on The Relentless Fight because of it's focus on building solid community. In a previous post, Brothers in Arms, we talked about the need to have close Christians in your life, to remind you of the gospel and to encourage you in the fight against sin. This book is your tactical map for how to operate day to day in that helpful community.

The book has many similar concepts to Ed Welch's other recent book, Side by Side, but  with the benefit of being only half the length! This makes Caring for One Another a digestible quick-read that introduces you quickly to the practical applications of how to love others in community. It's the easiest introduction to the practicals of Christian community.

Some key highlights:

• Humility: You can't grow unless you admit you need help from God and others. Remember, you can't even become a Christian unless you admit you need Christ! The Christian life is radically characterized by humility. Welch writes, "Humility simply acknowledges our many sins and limitations, and it responds with, 'I need Jesus, and I need other people.'" and "One way to put humility to work is this: Ask someone to pray for you."
• Prayer = Care: How do we care for one another? Primarily by listening, and responding in prayer. This frees us up from the pressure of having the right answer or requiring years of training. Just listen, and pray! That's actionable for every Christian, even children. And the Lord blesses this work, "Apparently, the Lord is pleased to use ordinary people, through seemingly ordinary acts of love, to be the prime contributors to the maturing of his people."
• Vulnerable Community: It's so rare for Christians to talk openly about their sin, and respond with gospel encouragement and helping one another to fight our sin. Welch writes, "Our goal is to contribute to a community in which it is increasingly natural to talk about sin and ask each other for help." and "Could you imagine a community in which we can confess our sins to one another, and we respond to such confessions and pleas with humility, gentleness, patience, and prayer?"  Yes, please! 
• Discussion-Ready: There are small group discussion questions at the end of each of the 8 lessons. The short chapters are meant to be read aloud by the leader without needing to do additional preparation, with immediate discussion with the group. This makes it easy to use, right "out of the box"! 

In summary, Caring for One Another is a short handbook on creating a Christian community of humility, prayer, and love. If every church applied this book, then the world would KNOW that we are disciples of Jesus (John 13:35). You can buy the book here.

Note: Crossway provided a free ebook copy in exchange for this honest review, as part of their Blog Review Program. Win/win!

Book Review: How Does Sanctification Work?

"work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." - Philippians 2:12b-13

David Powlison is the executive director of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation (CCEF). He has written 6 books and many more mini-books. His priestly and pastoral style is refreshing in a caustic and frantic world.

How Does Sanctification Work? is being highlighted here on The Relentless Fight because of its spot-on topic of sanctification and growth in faith. But the flavor is VERY different. Powlison is an author who is wary of pat answers, systems, and reductionism. He loves nuance. He exalts story. He won't give a formula. All in all, it's a good counterweight to The Relentless Fight, which often focuses on practical concrete steps and the formula motto, "Remember the Gospel, Keep Fighting".

Some key highlights:

• "Remember the gospel" is insufficient: At first glance it seems Powlison disagrees with what's been written here on TRF, like in this post, "What is the Relentless Fight?" He says there is no pat answer, no one-size-fits-all solution to growth in the Christian life, that there is not one key to sanctification. And this is a helpful nuance! It IS insufficient to MERELY remember the gospel. There also must be fighting for affection for Christ, implementing strategies and wisdom, and help from accountable brothers in Christ. And the diverse ways that God grows Christians cannot be reduced to a mere intellectual "remember the gospel" which instantly results in change. This is a helpful counterweight to the emphasis of The Relentless Fight. 
• Truth unbalanced and rebalanced: This is the title for chapter 3, and was one of the most helpful points in the book. “Here is a core premise: Ministry “unbalances” truth for the sake of relevance; theology “rebalances” truth for the sake of comprehensiveness." This is profound! In personal ministry, you can't say everything that is true about God. You have limited time, and must carefully select the particular truth that is most useful in that moment. "The task in any ministry moment is to choose, emphasize, and “unbalance” truth for the sake of relevant application to particular persons and situations. You can’t say everything all at once—and you shouldn’t try.” Therefore the wise counselor needs to develop a diverse toolbelt, and the wisdom to select the best truth tool. “In order to actually minister to people, you need wise selectivity, while bearing in mind the fullest possible repertoire of options from which to choose."
• 5 Factors for Change: Though Powlison resists making formulas, he does identity five factors for change, to help provide structure for sanctification. Those 5 are: God changes you, truth changes you, suffering & struggle change you, wise people change you, and you change. “This is how sanctification works. Your entire Christian life is a series of variations and permutations of this five-dimensional process."
• Stories: Powlison includes two chapters of his own story, and two examples of a man named Charles and a lady named Charlotte, to put flesh and bones to this nuanced view of how sanctification happens. 

In summary, How Does Sanctification Work? is a helpful nuance to the primary question that this blog is asking: how do I grow? You can buy the book here.

Note: Crossway provided a free ebook copy in exchange for this honest review, as part of their Blog Review Program. Win/win!

Book Review: 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You

"...but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful." - Mark 4:19

Tony Reinke is a senior writer for Desiring God, author of several books, and host of the popular Ask Pastor John podcast. His latest book is about how our smartphones are affecting us.

12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You is being highlighted here on The Relentless Fight because almost every single reader of this blog uses a phone. You're probably reading this on your phone right now! This affects all of us. Do you realize how your phone is using you? Do you realize how it's changing you? Do you recognize the impact it's having on your spiritual life, even on your capacity to remember the gospel and keep fighting against sin? Do you realize that some of your sins are fueled and resourced BY your phone? This issue could not be more relevant in our technological age. The fight of faith can be undermined by a hundred swipes and a thousand notifications that dull and distract us from what truly matters.

But the problem is not the phone. The problem is the person using the phone: you and I have a heart full of sin, and an inclination to turn away from the Lord and focus on trivial things. That's why the phone is used for sin, both proactively and passively. The phone merely reveals and exposes the heart of the user. Therefore the solution isn't to ditch the phone, the solution is to redeem the heart of the user. And that requires the power of the gospel. When joy in Christ is at the center of a woman's heart, she will use her phone (and everything else) to fuel that joy. Holiness and love will be the overflow of that joy! Then the tool of the phone will be used for the glory of Christ and the good of others, instead of used as a tool for further sin and self-glory. Only the gospel is the effective solution! Then flowing out of that solution (to the real problem of the human heart) we can begin to craft a wise strategy of methods and boundaries for how we use our smartphones. So we must start with the gospel, then move to application: Remember the gospel, and keep using your smartphone wisely. 

Here's a few highlights and ideas from the book:

• God is not anti-technology: God set up the trajectory of man to use tech so that “the untilled garden would become a glorious city" from Genesis 2 to Revelation 22. The question is how we USE technology. It's a tool, and can be used for good or evil. It can drive us to greater knowledge and worship of God, or it can distract us and blind us spiritually. The technology of paper and printing can be used to publish the Word of God, or to publish pornography. A knife can be used to cut up onions or to kill a man. How are you using your phone? What are its fruits in your life? 
• Distraction: The smartphone is the pinnacle of distraction! Watch out. Consider in Mark 4 in the parable of the soils, the 3rd one is the “distracted soil”. This type of heart has so many distractions. God is squeezed in there next to a hundred other things vying for attention and time. Jesus spoke that parable 2000 years ago, and do we have more or less distractions today? Oh man...  The phone presents unlimited distraction: games, texts, articles, videos, snaps, and perhaps even phone calls. “God has given us the power of concentration in order for us to see and avoid what is false, fake, and transient—so that we may gaze directly at what is true, stable, and eternal. It is part of our creatureliness that we are easily distracted; it is part of our sinfulness that we are easily lured by what is vain and trivial.” We must gaze at Christ and remember the gospel. We must be often in prayer. But how can we do this with so much distraction? We must discipline ourselves to avoid distractions.
• Behold Christ: Jesus is better! We become what we worship. If we behold Christ, we will become like Christ. If we behold the endless stream of what’s trending on Twitter, that will be what we become, that will begin to capture and inform our perspective, THAT will be what we think about. So what do we do? The first step is we have to behold Christ. Do you spend time beholding Christ? Or do you spend much more time beholding whatever banal or discouraging things are trending online? Wars and celebrity gossip and political gear-grinding and whatever hashtag campaign is SUPER INTENSE IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW but then gone tomorrow? Colossians 3:1-4, let us set our mind on things above, on CHRIST who is seated in heaven, and you can use your phone as a TOOL to help you behold Christ. Beholding Christ will make us delight in him, which will lead us to declare him. The alternative is to behold what’s trending, being forced to delight in banal and dark things, and inevitably declaring them in our retweets, comments, and shares. 
• Reading the Word: One of the most powerful ways to behold Christ is to see Him presented in the Bible. Our attention and literacy is at stake when smartphones eat up all our time and focus. We just don't have the depth of mind or the attention span to be able to feast on the Word of God. Proverbs 27:7 says "One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet." We're too busy nibbling on the sickly-sweet candy of social media. So when we open up the Bible, we're just bloated and full of junk in our souls, so there's no hunger for the Bread of Life. We can't hear from God because our ears are deaf from the nonstop shouting of our timelines, texts, trends, and tweets.
• Secret Sins: “Smartphones make it possible for users to help themselves to fresh forbidden fruit at any moment of any day, and thereby destroy themselves in secret.” Our phones open up new doors to dark worlds, especially porn. Our phones become the gateway, supplier, and "drug dealer" for a whole host of our addictions: pornography, approval from people, our pride in always being in the know, control over our lives, comparison & jealousy, relationship idolatry, and in general the god of entertainment. How is your phone making provision for the flesh? But maybe even worse, phones also offer a promised anonymity to shield our secret sins and keep them hidden. Richard Baxter spoke to the danger of this in the 17th century, "Concealment is Satan's great advantage." Open up to some brothers in arms, and pull those secret sins out into the light. 
• Remember the Gospel: “All spiritual growth is rooted in remembering what Christ has done in me.” This is a key concept! And it is the foundation of The Relentless Fight. In order to be motivated and empowered to fight, we need the power of the gospel. We must REMEMBER by faith. Reinke writes, “To remember God is to satisfy the soul and to recalibrate our always-shifting perception of reality. But to forget God is to forsake God. This spiritual plague of forgetfulness is not physical forgetfulness or mental dementia. Spiritual forgetting is sin, a sin that plagues youth and infests every demographic.” And he concludes, “Remembering is one of the key spiritual disciplines we must guard with vigilance amid the mind-fragmenting and past-forgetting temptations of the digital age.”

Our phones reflect back to us glimpses of our hearts. What we tap on shows what we love. What we gaze at is what we long for. Our smartphone habits expose our hearts. This can be devastating, as we see the dark depths of soul, but it can also be a springboard to the gospel. It shows our GREAT need for Jesus, because the Cross is for failures! Do your smartphone habits show that you are weak, sinful, prideful, and distracted from what really matters? Then there's good news for you!! Jesus came to help the weak, the sick, the broken. He came to DIE for you, to rescue you, and to bring you back to wholeness and give you new life in Him. Be encouraged. Your failures with your phone are not the last word. Jesus is GREATER, and His gospel gives POWER. You CAN change, because there are way more than 12 ways that JESUS is changing YOU! This is so encouraging!

In summary, 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You is highly recommended for anyone who uses a phone. If you love Jesus, you are called to use your phone as a tool to stir your affections for Him. Resist the temptations to distraction, to anonymity, and to feasting your eyes on silly things rather than on Christ. If you're convicted as you read this review, and God is showing you that your smartphone habits need repentance, check out Tony Reinke's followup article: 12 Steps to Digital Detox. 

Note: Crossway provided a free ebook copy in exchange for this honest review, as part of their Blog Review Program. Win/win! 

Relentless Prayer

"...be constant in prayer." - Romans 12:12

Imagine having a special phone that gave you access to call the CEO of Amazon to ask for anything from the website, for free. Or imagine you're a soldier in war, and given a special radio that connects you to the general himself, to ask for intelligence or air support. Finally, imagine your significant other is on speed-dial, ready to pick up and listen when you're lonely, sad, or need encouragement.

Prayer is our gift from God, His invitation to talk with him and ask him for help. That's all prayer is: talking with God. But it's different than talking to yourself, talking to a friend, or talking to a robot. God has character and resources far better than anyone else. He is richer than Amazon, more powerful than a General, and more comforting than your greatest relationship. You get a direct line to ask for His help. What a privilege!

We have examples throughout Scripture of godly people praying: Moses in the wilderness, Hannah in 1 Samuel, David in the Psalms, the early church in Acts 1:14, Paul & Silas in prison in Acts 16:25. We see in Revelation 5:8 that God keeps our prayers before Him as incense in bowls. And perhaps most importantly, we see Jesus praying often (Mark 1:35, Luke 9:18, John 17, Matthew 26:36), and teaching His disciples to pray (Luke 11:1). Prayer is important!

God not only invites us to talk with him as often as we'd like, He actually commands us to engage in relentless prayer! Let's take a look at a few Scriptures:

• Ephesians 6:18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints
• 1 Thessalonians 5:17 pray without ceasing
• Romans 12:12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
• Colossians 4:2 Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.
• Luke 18:1 And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. 

So when should we pray? All the time. Consider each of these specific situations:

• When tempted, pray: When you are facing temptation, and vulnerable to giving in, call out for God's help! This is what Jesus commands us in Matthew 26:41, "Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." John Owen wrote a whole book on this one verse, called Of Temptation, found in this 3-part volume. Jesus further instructs us to pray even BEFORE we face temptation, in Matthew 6:13, "And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
• When victorious, pray: Did you make it through the temptation? Did you succeed? You must realize that you did not succeed on your own strength, that victory is from the Lord. Proverbs 21:31 says, "The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord." All victory is because of God's grace and provision. Therefore praise God, give thanks to Him. He gets the glory for victory. 
• When in trouble, pray: Psalm 50:15, "call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me." Are you in trouble? Do you have difficulty? Are you facing obstacles or challenges? Call upon the Lord! Ask Him. Speak with Him. He will deliver you for His glory and your rescue. 
• When you are glad, pray: Pray with praise! Give thanks to God! That is the proper overflow of our joy and gladness. Consider these COMMANDS to praise God: Psalm 95:1, "Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!" and Psalm 100:1-2, "Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing!" and James 5:13b, "Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise."
• When in need, pray: Jesus offers to provide us with whatever we need. John 14:14, "If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it." and John writes in 1 John 5:14, "And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us." and Paul writes in Philippians 4:19, "And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus." How can God do this? Because in Him are limitless riches, and He owns "the cattle on a thousand hills" (Psalm 50:10). No need is too great for our great God who has no needs. Wow. 
• When you've failed, pray: You've sinned. Should you run away from God? No, no! Come to Him. Jesus is the friend of sinners. Draw near to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16). Pray to confess your sins. Pray to ask for God's forgiveness. Pray to ask for help in fighting. For more on this, check out Right After the Failure. 
• When you're opening up the Bible, pray: If God's Spirit does not assist us in our Bible reading, the Living Word will remain merely black ink on a white page. We desperately need His help. Our hearts need to be inclined to the Lord (Psalm 119:36), our eyes need to be opened to see spiritual truth (Psalm 119:18). John Piper has an amazing prayer acronym called IOUS, and you can learn about it on this Ask Pastor John podcast episode titled: I'm Bored with the Bible. 
• When suffering, pray: James 5:13a is crystal clear, "Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray." And we have this encouraging promise from Psalm 34:18, "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." God has already drawn near! Pour out your heart to Him like water (Lamentations 2:19). The Psalms are filled with songs of lament, crying out to God in suffering. God cares. God knows. Speak to Him in your pain. 
• When you need to grow, pray: We've already talked here on The Relentless Fight about how we should Pray for Discipline. Ask God to grow you! Ask Him to train you. Ask for the conviction of the Holy Spirit about specific sins in your life. Ask for His help. 
• When the harvest is plentiful, pray: Jesus knows that there are not enough workers in the mission of disciple-making, the need is greater than the supply. He calls us to ASK the Lord of the Harvest for more workers, "therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." (Matthew 9:38). Pray for God to raise up more disciple-makers! Pray for reinforcements! 
• When anxious, pray: Anxiety is like a warning light on the dashboard of your heart. How should you respond? You should pray. Anxiety can therefore be a REMINDER to pray, woah! Philippians 4:6, "do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." and 1 Peter 5:7, "casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you." Don't worry, God cares for you. 
• When others need help, pray: Don't just pray for yourself, pray for others! Are they suffering, tempted, victorious, glad, or anxious? Pray for them too! James 5:16 says, "Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working." All throughout Paul's letters we see him praying for his churches. We see in Luke 22:32 Jesus prays that Peter's faith would not fail when he is sifted like wheat by Satan. 
• When your prayers aren't answered, pray: Sometimes we pray and pray, and we don't get the answer we want, or we seemingly get no answer. Paul had this experience in 2 Corinthians 12:1-10, he asked the Lord three times to remove his thorn in the flesh, but God answered no. We see the Psalmists crying out, "How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?" (Psalm 13:1). This is certainly painful. But our response to this pain should ironically be... to pray. For more thoughts on this, check out this blog post.
• When __________, pray: We've only scratched the surface of the situations where we are called to pray. No matter what you're experiencing, prayer is ALWAYS a good response. It's probably the wisest and best thing you can do. Pray. "God can do more in five seconds than we can do in five hours or months or years. This is one reason the habit of prayer is wise. Sometimes we do not get the five-second breakthrough because we do not ask." (John Piper article)

Pray!! All the time, pray. In every situation, pray. Finally, a few more resources on prayer:

• Four Motivations to Pray (Ask Pastor John Piper, sermon clip)
• A Call to Prayer (very small book by JC Ryle)
• Prayer: Experiencing Awe and Intimacy with God (longer book by Timothy Keller)
• Or rather, don't read about prayer, just do it. Just pray. Pray. Pray right now. 

Pray. Remember the Gospel. Pray. Keep Fighting. Pray. Prayer should soak all we think, say, and do. Why would we not? 

Praying,

The Relentless Fight