Skip to main content

Pursuing the Ultimate Goal - Part 6 of 6

STAND FIRM

Philippians 4:1 - Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my jot and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!

God has given us a game plan here from Paul and throughout the entire Bible of how we are to live.  We are to be bold...bold about who we are, bold in standing up for our beliefs, and bold for Jesus Christ!

We will face setbacks along the way.  They may come from confrontation with others or mistakes of our own accord but we are to continue to press on - "The blessing is in the pressing".  Michael Jordan has the following quote regarding perseverance:  "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.  I've lost almost 300 games.  26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.  I've failed over and over and over again in my life.  And that is why I succeed." 

In order for us to stand firm in our faith (or anything really) we must know what we believe in.  Think about it, if you love a sport, you read about it, study it, watch it.  Sports fans watch ESPN, drama people watch TV shows, newsies read articles in the paper and online.  We devote our time to knowing everything we can about the things we love and are passionate about it.  To know the Word, we have to study the Word.  If you are confronted with a question about an issue and don't know the answer, look it up in scripture.  If someone isn't willing to look up an answer to their question with you in the Bible or on a Christian website, then they really don't want to know the answer. 

As we prepare to stand firm in the Lord, we must remember what Charles Stanley has said, "The most important thing in your life, yesterday, today, and tomorrow is your relationship with Jesus Christ.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2020 is Hindsight...Finally!

Wow, what a year! 2020 could literally be an entire decade, maybe more, of history, change, and lessons rolled up into these twelve months. While many aspects of 2020 were kind of sucky and we would like to forget them, it will certainly be a year to remember. And it will be enlightening when this year is looked back on in 10, 25, or 50 years to be discussed. I wonder if we'll seem like geniuses or idiots? Probably both to some extent! While there is so much that I could consider and analyze about this year, I'll try to break some of it down into four dimensions - Physical, Spiritual, Mental, and Social/Emotional. These are events and happenings from my world and perspective and I'm trying to be open in sharing and would love to hear from others on events you found most transforming. Physical When COVID cause gyms to close, that messed me up. Our town and state were late to be hit with severe cases and therefore later than many across the country to close up shop. I'm n...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to Pray - The Object of Our Prayer

In our College & Career Sunday school class this week, we started a series titled, "How to Pray."  I plan to try to and share the lessons each week in case anyone wants to follow along with us here...or you can come join us Sunday mornings at Tabernacle at 10 AM in room 218. Any good speaker, teacher, or presenter knows that the #1 rule of public speaking is to know your audience.  You don't want to prepare a discussion about retirement for preschoolers and a presentation themed with Disney princesses most likely wouldn't spark the interest of a group of businessmen.  In order for someone to prepare a dynamic and engaging presentation, they must know their audience, who they're preparing to talk to. The same is true in our prayer life.  The Point of this week's study is: "A right view of God fuels how we pray."  The conversations we engage in with our friends about are often focused on topics that interest them: their favorite team, favorite ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lessons in Prayer - 1 Timothy 2:1-8 - Our Attitudes

I'm still working through this same passage on prayer from 1 Timothy and I won't copy all the verses but you can read from the beginning to have a better understanding of the full passage. "...That we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.  This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior." - 1 Timothy 2:2b-3 Paul's plea for Timothy here is for the church to live peaceful and quiet lives.  So how do we do that?  Well the thought of peacefulness is a life that is free from internal disturbances or distractions.  We must first be at peace with ourselves before we can be at peace with others.  A quiet life is one that flows from being peaceful and is a life free from external disturbances and distractions.  Now this does not mean that the church is to just go along with whatever the world says in order to be peaceful.  We are not to waver on biblical truth period.  You won't find true Christian...
Post a Comment
Read more