Standing Firm and Tall in Christ

A bad habit that many of us below have is we rely on our abilities and capabilities too much. While it is good to believe in yourself, it is also important to understand your limitations and know when it let go and let God work. From many personal experiences, I can attest that many situations would have been much easier and simpler if only I would have gotten out of the way and just let God take over.

Scripture tells us “The LORD shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.” What I have learned from living for God is that God fights for us regardless of the situation and all we have to do is just be still. Unfortunately, like many others—probably all people—I did not learn this for a long time and its human nature to not trust others especially with any aspect of our lives. After all, we know what’s best for our lives but something else that I’ve learned is if we want to hear God laugh, all we need to do is tell Him our plans.

Philippians 4:19 tells us that God will give us all we need according to His glory: “But my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Further, Jeremiah 29:11 reads “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” While different versions of the Bible of this scripture differ just a bit in phrasing, the point remains the same: God has a plan for us and His plan is much better than ours and often times, it is different than ours and all we have to do is simply trust God and allow for God to do what He desires.

As Christians, we have the reassurance that if we trust God and accept Him, He will never leave or forsake us regardless of how many times we mess up. As a baseball fan, I have seen many good young players come up and have quick success but many were unable to keep up with the demands of their success. In other words, success is often times harder to handle than failure. As a ballplayer, failure is expected as a .300 average is what every good hitter shoots for so three out of ten at bats when a hit is recorded, you are considered succeeding.

The equation is simple as three out of ten means that you made an out the other seven times. Think of this situation in our Christian life. More than likely, we are going to fail more times than we succeed and Christ knows this. He tells us that we fall short of His glory but through Christ and His glory, we are given salvation and eternal assurance. In baseball, this is not so as failure may get you a trip to the minor leagues, a ticket to Japan, or looking for another career but with God, He is always there and we never have to search for another God.

Last but certainly not least is when we fight our battle(s), we should remember that we are not alone in the fight. Yes, Christ is with us always but I also mean that everyone is fighting a battle even if we cannot see it. Many times, people are going through things that we know nothing about and while many people love talking about themselves and boast about what they are going through, others do not. 1 Peter 5:9 reads “Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.” Therefore, we must stand tall and firm in Christ and trust Him with the results.