Friday, February 4, 2005
"STAND UP! - STAND UP FOR JESUS!"
A country song on the radio says, "If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything!" How true it is. If a person doesn't have firm convictions, more than likely he'll fall for just about every crackpot and wacko idea that's thrown his way. How many people don't you and I know who, with no foundation to stand upon, believe just about everything the TV or the tabloids tells them?
We Christians need to keep standing strong! We don't want to be people who fall for anything, because we have too much lose.
Standing for Jesus means standing up for the Gospel. The Gospel tells us that what we couldn't do for ourselves, namely, earn our own way into Heaven, Jesus has done for us! There were two important things Jesus did to earn salvation for us. First He led a perfect life so that we could get the credit for His life (Rom 5:19). Then He put Himself on the cross to remove the stain of our guilt, once and for all (Is 53:5-6). He did this for all people! With God-given faith we grab hold of Jesus' sinless life and sacrificial atonement, make it our own, and claim Heaven for ourselves. The Gospel of Christ declares: HE DID IT FOR US! The Gospel of Christ, the Bible promises, is also at work inside us, giving us power to live for God and deal with life in a fallen world (2 Cor 5:14-17).
Standing up for Jesus also means standing up for the entirety of Scripture. Standing for Scripture means that we regard every syllable of the Bible as God's Word and not the word of men (2 Thess 2:13). Since the Bible is God's Word, it is not to be changed, tampered with, or twisted in any way (Dt 4:2; Jn 10:35). Standing for Christ means that we will gladly be guided by what Scripture tells us, trusting that it will never steer us wrong (Ps 119:105). Standing for Christ means letting the Bible have the last word in our lives and not what our reason or what the world tells us (2 Cor 10:5).
But standing up for Jesus is nothing we can do by ourselves. We need Jesus Who says, "Without Me, You can do nothing." We have Jesus Who also says, "I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS!" With Jesus by our side we can stand up and join the hymn writer who writes:
Stand up! Stand up for Jesus! Stand in His strength alone;
The arm of flesh will fail you, Ye dare not trust your own.
Put on the Gospel armor, Each piece put on with prayer;
Where duty calls or danger, Be never wanting there. 