Standing Firm: Faith, Resilience, and Spiritual Strength

1) "You see, in the physical sense, according to the dictionary, it means to adopt a firm position about an issue or to hold one's ground against an enemy. Now, the act of standing, whether it's literal, whether it's spiritual, requires more than just our physical ability. You see, our mind, which the Bible refers to as our heart or also as our will, is a deciding factor for everything that we decide to do. You see, my brothers and sisters, the body is controlled by our minds, or in other words, our hearts. And we already know, according to the Bible, it says, as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." [03:21] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "Now, despite everything, every obstacle that Paul faced, Paul still stood firm. And if you think for a second that Paul had it easy, let's just go back and trace our steps. Paul was stoned. Paul was beaten. Paul was jailed. Paul was shipwrecked. And most of these happened more than once. And to top it all off, Paul was also bitten by one of the most deathliest snakes in the world today. But against all odds, Paul was able to stay the course and stand firm. Now, make no mistake, I'm sure the physical body of Paul, had reached its limits on multiple occasions. However, it was his mind, it was his heart, it was his will that was still firm in the Lord." [06:49] (51 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "Day by day, Satan is constantly creating new ways and using old ways to constantly distract the people of God. And the unfortunate thing about this very thing is that Satan knows our weaknesses, and thus he does his best to exploit them to the best of his abilities. Ellen White shares in this input again, in the book, Mind, Character, and Personality, volume 2, chapter 72, page 35, she writes, As his evil angels around us, and though they cannot read men's thoughts, they closely watch their words and actions. Satan takes advantage of the weakness and defects of character, and thus revealed and presses into his temptations where there is the least power of resistance." [08:22] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "There's an old saying, and it goes, if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. So what should we stand for? We should stand for the faith, just as Paul did. Book of Revelation, chapter 2, verse 10, the apostle John writes, do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation 10 days. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. Standing firm in the faith, means we are to say no to things that will lead us off the path of righteousness." [09:59] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "Finally, how are we able to stand? We must be strong. We must be strong. We just talked about being on our guard. We talked about standing firm in the promises of God, but now we must be strong. And the amazing thing about this is the Bible says, be strong, but the rest of the verse says, be strong in the Lord. God is saying, give it to me. Give it to me. Be strong in me. The U.S. Army has a slogan, and it says simply be strong, or I'm sorry, army strong. And what this simply means is if you are to be a soldier in the U.S. Army, you must not only be physically strong, but mentally strong. And as soldiers of Christ, I implore each of us to not only be strong physically, not only be strong mentally, not only be strong spiritually, but be strong in the Lord." [14:11] (96 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "We are soldiers of Christ. He is the captain of our salvation, and we are under his orders and rules. We are to wear his armor. We're to be marshaled only under his banner. We are to keep on the whole armor of God and work as in view of the universe of heaven. So here it is. You want to know how to stand. You want to know how to stand in the wake of As we look through the Bible, Paul wasn't the only person who stood firm. We look at in the story of Daniel. We look in the story of the three Hebrew boys. We look in the story of Esther. We look in all these that we look in the story of all the apostles and how they were killed for their beliefs, how they were killed for standing firm for God." [17:59] (68 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)