Acts 1:8 NIV
“ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Matthew 28:19,20 NIV
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
This is our mandate. We already know what our vision is, but there are visions that get encompassed within other visions – and this is where we are going as a church. John 15:16 says, “If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.”
1983 was a very different world than it is now. In many areas of the country, the issue of homosexuality was still a quiet thing – something not talked about. We didn’t have any politicians that were cross-dressing in public. If they were doing it, it was in secret. They weren’t being paraded around in a White House cabinet for the world to see just how weak we are as a nation – where we not just leaned to the left, but where we ran right off the cliff.
In 1983 that wasn’t happening. We didn’t have pastors and churches giving in to culture by saying, “Anything’s okay, anything goes – same-sex marriage – change your identity from a human to a cat, or from a boy to a girl.” Churches had not gone down that road yet. That was 1983 – but this is 2024 – and there are things that are leaning… leaning… and leaning so far that, at some point, they’re going to fall over. As we enter into this new year, and, as we look at the world that is shaking, or read a news feed for five minutes. We keep coming back to the idea of “standing”.
Isaiah 54:2 NIV
“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes.” – a time for expansion – for going out.
Ephesians 6:13-18 NIV
“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.”
James 1:5-8 NIV
“ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded [tossed between two opinions, leaning, not committed, not standing] and unstable in all they do.”
Where our culture and our politics have gone – where liberalism and woke-ism have gone – being unstable, which means being tossed between two opinions – where we can’t land anywhere, we drift towards anything that comes down the pike, and that informs the way we think. If we’re not standing guard – not guarding what comes in our eye-gate and ear gate – then we become receptors to all of the things that our culture is trying to get into us – those things that the world and the “prince of the power of the air” uses to indoctrinate us.
We then become a sitting target, where everything that comes along seems to make sense to us. Love starts to look like tolerance, and then we need to be more tolerant and more open. “The Bible is really just an old book written a long time ago, and maybe we need to leave some things in the past, in terms of behavior, expectations, and teachings from the book. We’re more enlightened now, aren’t we? Aren’t we smarter than they were back then? Also, life’s a lot more complicated now – those were different times – and new times call for new ways of seeing things.”
Loving people doesn’t mean that we tolerate or embrace their decisions. We have a world right now that is spinning off the rails, and we wonder what has happened. Why? – did God zag right and we zagged left? Did he stop as we just kept going? Did we miss him? There’s a reason why we see the children of Israel following a pillar of fire by night – God’s presence. Whenever he would move, they would move. During the day was a pillar of cloud – massive, intense, and imposing.
Whenever God would move, their responsibility was to move with him. When he went – they went. When he turned to the right, they turned to the right. They would go when he went and stop when he would stop. That should be a heads-up for us today – it’s really not any different. God gives us his presence – the Holy Spirit. We spent six months learning about the Person, the work, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
He still moves the way he moved. He still guides – still leads and directs. We are to follow him as he leads. But what if we have a culture that says, “Oh, that was back then!” What if we have churches, pastors, and teachers that say those times were different? What if we have churches that are no longer standing, but that are leaning, because that’s the thing to do, and we want to be “loving”, don’t we?
There’s a tendency to think that love means anything goes, as long as we’re happy and speaking our own truth. No, we need to speak God’s Truth if we’re a child of God. We don’t have our own truth, we have His Truth, and we are purveyors of that. We are to “speak the truth in love.” (Ephesians 4:15). So, love means that we speak the truth, but we do it in love, and that’s the key.
It’s our responsibility from the Holy Spirit to speak Truth into our situation – to say, “We don’t lean – we stand!” As a church and as believers we are to stand on the Word of God – the promises of God – the finished work of Christ. Whatever the Bible calls holy, we’re going to call holy, and whatever it calls sin, we’re going to call sin. We don’t need Christians or churches that lean one way or another. We need a church to rise up in America and stand – that will bring out the Book and stand on the Book, no matter what happens, “come hell or high water.”
1 Corinthians 16:13 NIV
“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.”
Stand, Stand, and Keep Standing
We tend to think in contrasts and opposites: black – white, hot – cold, day – night, up – down, right – left. It sets up an either/or scenario where a choice must be made to go with one or the other. The Apostle Paul gives us a bold list: be on guard, stand firm, be courageous, and do everything in love.
When it comes to standing up for your faith, righteousness, holy sexuality, the family, the sanctity of life, and biblical truth, sometimes doing ‘everything in love’ doesn’t show up in the mix. However, it must be front and center or it’s not the heart and mission of Jesus. Be on guard? Yes! Stand firm? Yes! Be courageous? Yes! Be strong? Yes! Bold? Yes! Resolute? Yes! Outspoken? Yes! Fearless? Yes! Confident? Yes! Powerful? Yes! Daring? Yes! Unwavering? Yes! And… Do everything, i.e., do it all in, by, and through LOVE. Stay standing and keep loving.”
Ephesians 6:13 NIV
“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”
Prayer
Father, in Jesus’ name, thank You for Truth. Thank You for Your Word. Father, we move out, not in angst, anxiety, anger, arrogance, or pride, but in love – everything in love – every stand we take, in love. Every time a word is spoken, may it be spoken in love. Father, let this next great revival come, not out of fear, but out of love. Lord, we are here to be Truth-speakers and Truth-tellers, and we will speak the Truth in Love. Lord, we bless Your name. Make our stance to be unmovable and unshakeable. Thank you, in Jesus’ name. Amen
This is an updated edition of a post originally published on The Bridge
Featured Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
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