Hold Fast To Your Faith

Hi everyone, it’s such a pleasure to be giving all of you some exhortation before the year ends. For those of you who have been following us in this weekend devotion, it is to my delight to announce to you that today right here on this episode will be our last. It has been a very pleasurable 2-3 years of sharing God’s word over the weekend devotion.

Now, if we recall, this devotion started at the onset of Covid_19, which is an initiative by The Blessed Run Church to bring encouragement to believers during this pandemic, as well as to give us biblical insights to issues facing this day of age. As Christians living in these current times, it is important to be thoroughly informed through the truth of God, lest we be carried away by the current wind of change or controversies of all sorts.

But since we are almost at the end of pandemic, we have decided to cease this devotion. Instead, we would like to encourage you to go back to your Church for physical worship. Or if you currently do not have a Church to worship in, we would like to welcome you to join us. Our website is https://www.theblessedrun.sg/We are located near Macpherson MRT. Our Church service is held every Sunday 4pm, and cell meetings every Wed and Fri 8pm.

Now, before we end this whole episode altogether, I would like to give you a final exhortation about holding fast to the word of God. <Heb 10:23>: Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for he is faithful that promised (KJV).

Now, what does it mean by holding fast? Basically, it means to “cling to,” or “take a firm grasp of.” It has the idea of gripping tightly to something. In <Deu 10:20>, it says: Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name.

Now my brethren, if you notice, God has always given his people a conditional promise about holding fast to him and enjoying the fulfillment of His promise. He said to His people through Moses: If you carefully observe all these commands I am giving you to follow—to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him and to hold fast to him— then the Lord will drive out all these nations before you, and you will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you <Deu 11:22-23>. Again, what did the Lord promise? “I will dispossess nations larger and stronger than you”. So you see, the reason churches are weak before the world is not because it is lesser in numbers, but because it doesn’t hold fast to the Lord. It compromises. It adopts worldly methodology. It believes that the way to grow the church and its strength is to assimilate into what is pleasing and popular with the world. It forsakes grounded biblical teachings and develop new prophecies. It creates popular sentiments to lure young people into the church. And they forgot what the Lord says: “My sheep knows my voice”.

Now, when all the sheep hears are popular ideas and sentiments of the world and doesn’t hear from the Lord, they will be lost. When all that the sheep eat in the church is goat’s food, not sheep’s food, the church will be weak.  

Now my brethren. We are not told to try to appear stronger than the world. We are not instructed to grow the church with style and numbers. But we are told to hold fast to the profession of our faith without wavering

Now, how do we hold fast to our faith? We live in a changing world. In this world, change seems to be the only constant. The world advocates a belief that if we do not change, we will be obsolete. Business changed their business model to stay profitable. Men change their moral values to suit a more liberal society. Music, fashion and art all have to keep up to changes to stay popular.

Yes, my brethren, these things keep changing, but the Word of God do not change. And the faithfulness of the Lord does not change. For the Bible says: for he is faithful that promised.  

So hold fast to Him my brethren. Namely in 3 areas.

First, hold fast to the full counsel of God’s word. Don’t believe prophecies spoken by men. Don’t believe good speakers when they don’t preach from the Bible. That’s the first and foremost. Remember, any preacher who doesn’t point you to the Word of God is not a true shepherd of God’s sheep.

Second, give total commitment to God and obedience to His Word. A word of cautious here. Do not just love the Word, but be committed to the word and be doers of the word.

There are some believers who totally absorbed themselves with learning the knowledge of God’s word without realizing that they are not living the Word. They are only feeding themselves intellectually, but not spiritually. That is not holding fast to the Word. Because the Lord Jesus commended those who hears His Words and puts them into practice <Mt 7:24>.

Now if in any case, you couldn’t put the Word of God into practice by loving people and serving the church, think twice about your spiritual condition.

Last, be committed to pass down biblical values and moral system to the next generation. Because the promise of the Lord is not only for you but also for the next generation. Those who love the Lord will care about the spiritual edification of the next generation, because they will be the one who takes on the spiritual baton.

Now, at every end of the year as we look back, we will not fail to see people fall behind the ranks in their Christian faith. There are those who decided they’ve enough of this faith, and they want something more exciting. They left the faith. There are also those who begin to develop another definition of Christianity, thinking that it is just an acknowledgement about God in their mind, but not in their whole living. There are also those who change their position about their faith, abandoning grounded beliefs that they’ve held on to over the years. Instead, they develop a new style of Christian life by even thinking they can worship God in their own way. Some have even popularized the idea of worshipping at home or online. They usher in the idea of metaverse Church. That’s not biblical I would say. Usually, these people have also compromised with their syncretized worldviews and lifestyles that they’ve invented on their own. And many a times they try to justify it.

Now, it is always sad to see these happening, but the Bible has told us that the Christian faith is a race which we’ve to be responsible for before God. There is no time to lament or feel pathetic about such phenomenal. We can only be responsible for ourselves, and for the truths that have been given us. So hold fast to the truth that has been given you. Hold fast and you will not fail to see the reward of the Lord, and you will see how God will establish the works of your hands! <Ps 90:17>.

With that, I end this weekend devotion.

Just a final note here. We’re having Christian reformed classes during selective Saturdays to teach about critical biblical doctrines starting next year. You are welcome to join us to build yourselves up in these doctrines. If you’ve any queries, just send an email to us at [email protected]

 Peace be with you. I wish you a very blessed year 2023.