¹²Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

Christian living is not easy. From the get-go Satan attempts to pluck good seed from the roadside so faith does not take root. Indeed, faith comes through hearing the Word of God (Rom. 10:17), so the devil does everything to resist the preaching of the Word, whether through distorting it, clouding it, or persecuting those who preach it. He tried to prevent the living Word of God, Christ Himself, the “Logos,” from taking root in this world through Herod’s attempts at assassinating the infant Jesus. At His inauguration, the tempter had his three-time go at Jesus in the wilderness. Then the enemy of our souls tried to divert the Savior from the cross through the Gethsemane trial. In the end, his final power, death, lost its sting over Jesus, and ultimately over us. But if his battle was waged against Jesus, it will also be waged against us.

We might think of the world (the world system and non-believers) as engaging Christians in lethal battle as well. But “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph. 6:12). So how do we fight this kind of battle? Paul answers that question.

First, we must “take hold of eternal life.” To be sure, if we have Christ, we have eternal life (John 17:3, Rom. 8:28–39, 1 John 5:11–13). That full experience of eternal life is consummated when we enter God’s eternal presence. But now, we live by faith, that we might possess what is already ours. We must live out the reality and security of that truth. To live in constant fear of losing one’s salvation or experiencing God’s judgment is not to take hold of eternal life. It is ours: we claim it, we embrace it, we rest in it, we are confident in it—not because of anything we have done, but because eternal life is in Jesus Christ, and we have Him through faith.

Satan keeps waging his battle to knock us off this foundation of confidence, this assurance, this certainty. Of course, the certainty of our salvation does not depend upon our assurance of salvation, but the deceiver would like us to think it does.

Further, Paul reminds Timothy, and by extension us, of our public confession of faith. We take this to refer to Timothy’s baptism (see Rom. 6:1–7). We inwardly hold onto Christ, our eternal life, and we remember the “stake in the ground” when we publicly confessed him, without doubting that confession.

Lord, help me stand firm in the battle against doubt about my salvation.