December 17th follow-up

Colossians 1:24 – 2:23
When our faith comes under fire

The faith of the believers in Colossae was under attack from false teaching. The truth is though, the faith of believers has been under attack since the church was birth. Still today, as followers of Jesus, our faith continues to come under attack.

Sometimes our faith comes under attack in the form of suffering. Suffering entails undergoing pain, distress, or hardship. Not only can suffering come in various forms, but in those moments it can lead us to question our faith in Jesus as well as His faithfulness to us. Paul was no stranger to suffering. He was willing to suffer so that others might come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Times of suffering will either lead you to become stronger in your faith or it will lead you to become bitter.

When your faith is under fire, you want to make sure you have people around who will contend with you. Though Paul was physically unable to go to Colossae to deal with this problem himself. He did the one thing he knew he could do and that was to pray. Paul knew that the threat against the church was spiritual and demonic in origin. So Paul fervently battled on behalf of the believers in Colossae through prayer. Do you have that in your life? Do you have a Paul in your life who will contend with and for you?

It is not a question of if your faith will come under fire. It is a question of when. Since we never really know when that might happen, we need to be prepared. One way we can prepare is by making sure we are rooted in Christ. We want to make sure we are getting our spiritual roots deep through the watering of God’s Word. We also want to make sure we are doing the things we can do to keep our spiritual roots healthy. This includes not isolating ourselves from our church family. Lone trees are more susceptible to being uprooted than trees that are part of a forest or grove. If you are not around other believers, you will make it harder on yourself to find those who will contend with you.

Lastly, the best way to guard your faith in Christ is to know who Jesus is and what His death on the cross did for you. Most false teachings have several things in common. They deny the deity of Jesus and they deny the sufficiency of His sacrifice on the cross. Guard your faith by accepting that your salvation is not about what you do, it’s about what He did.  Have a blessed week and a wonderful Christmas.