Posture of Faith

by David Bobbitt

“Stop slouching!”

I do not know how many times I have heard my mother tell me this. It was followed by either, “Sit up straight in your chair,” or “Stand up straight.” Why? She did not want me to develop a bad or a sloppy posture.

Besides just giving the look of a slouchy person, bad posture can also lead to many spinal and muscular problems down the road. These are problems that can be avoided if we were to learn and to develop good posture.

Just as people can develop bad posture and become slouchy with their bodies, Christians can also develop “bad posture” and become slouchy in their Christian lives. In 1 Corinthians 16:13 the apostle Paul writes, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.” The word stand means to remain upright on a firm foundation while the word fast means to be set, to be fixed in position, to be tight, or to be deeply rooted. Paul was saying there are some things for which we need to stand straight and tall and not to become slouchy, to move, or to relax our position.

There are several things in which the Bible tells us we are to stand fast.

1. We are to stand fast in the faith.

1 Corinthians 16:13, “Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.”

The Bible makes it clear that we are to stand fast in the faith. No false doctrine, no teaching of error, and no influence should cause Christians to sway from the faith of the Word of God. In fact, Jude 1:3 takes it a step further and says this, “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.” Our faith is the foundation on which we stand; it is the only way to please God (Hebrews 11:6); and it is the shield with which we are able to quench all of the fiery darts of the wicked. We cannot let our faith become lax.

2. We are to stand fast in the liberty of Christ.

Galatians 5:1, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.”

Legalism (adding works to salvation) had crept into the church of Galatia. There were those who were trying to teach that people must keep the law in order to keep salvation. Paul, however, wrote to instruct them that salvation is by grace through faith without the works of the law. He then instructed them that they were to stand fast in the liberty of Christ. Christ had set them free from the law and from sin so that they might be led by the Spirit of God.

3. We are to stand fast in the Lord.

1 Thessalonians 3:8, “For now we live, if ye stand fast in the Lord.”

We serve such a faithful God! We, in turn, should be faithful to Him. Of all of the things in which a Christian should not become slack, it should be in his dedication and service to the Lord. In my life I have seen many turn their backs on God; they have walked away from their Lord—how sad. I am reminded of the instruction Paul gave to the church in Rome in Romans 12:1, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” After all that God has done for us, the least we can do is to stay faithfully true to Him.

4. We are to stand fast in the traditions which we have been taught.

2 Thessalonians 2:15, “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.” I fear that this is an area in which many today are developing “bad posture.” Rather than taking hold of the traditions that were handed down to us as fundamentalists, many are going rogue in seeking new paths and leaving the old paths that brought us to where we are today. Instead of standing tall for what has been passed down from the preceding generations of fundamentalism, there is a huge push to leave these “out of date” traditions and trade them in for the new, “more modern” methods of the world today. Friends, we need to watch our postures and to stand firm in the Bible methods we have been given.

Bad posture can lead to serious problems with our bodies as well as in our Christian lives. We must decide what we believe in each of these areas according to the Word of God.

Stand fast, stand tall, stand firm, and do not become a slouch!