Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, live like men, be strong! Let everything that you do be done in love.

1 Corinthians 16: 13-14

This afternoon as I drove back from Maysville, I listened to a sermon that described the lives of those who do not stand firm in the faith and so I am reminded again that Galatians 5:1 tells us that “for freedom, Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
 
It was Christ and Christ alone who set us free to live in FREEDOM. This is not just some kind of abstract idea or concept.  Today, in Christ, we can live in freedom from our past life of sin, freedom from our failures and experience freedom to live a life wholeheartedly pursuing the one who freed us.

Remember that Christ came so that “may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).
 
What keeps us from a life of Freedom in Christ?  
 
According to Scripture, there are two primary challenges that can weaken our stance. We have external pressures from the world around us and, unfortunately, we have a different kind of pressures sometimes found in teachings that abandon Scripture within the “church” with a different gospel. 

A Different Gospel?
  
In his final letter, Paul warned Timothy that “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:3-5).

If we intend to stand firm we must follow Paul’s direction to the church in Thessalonica: “So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thessalonians 2:15).

It is impossible to stand firm unless your feet are planted on solid ground. Spiritually speaking, you can only stand firm in what you know. How confident are you in what you know?  Can you spot teaching that has gone sideways?