“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”—1Corinthians 15:58
The word ‘stedfast’ as used in the above opening text, means; to be firm, stable and rigid. It means to be unmovable. All through scriptures, we find examples of people who lost their place in the original plan of God for their lives, along with destructive consequences as a result of lack of steadfastness. Two of those scriptural examples are Adam and Samson.
For Adam, God created him along with Eve his wife to have dominion on the earth and also live forever. But they both lost out of God’s plan for lack of steadfastness. As God created them and placed them in the Garden of Eden, he told them they were free to eat every fruit in the Garden, except for the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…
They both obeyed God’s commandment until the serpent tempted Eve and she fell. Then eventually when Adam saw that Eve had eaten the forbidden fruit, he also followed suit with her by allowing her to cajole him into the sin.
When God found out about Adam and Eve’s sin against his commandment, they both started apportioning blames. Eve blamed the serpent for deceiving her, while Adam blamed Eve for cajoling him into eating the fruit. But all the apportionment of blames did not save them from the punishment of God. God punished the serpent for its deception, but regardless, he also punished Adam and Eve for their sin (See Genesis 3:1-24).
Then concerning Samson, he was a very mighty man, raised by God to deliver the children of Israel from the oppressions of the Philistines. He fought against the Philistines as a one man squad, with remarkable victory every time. Then eventually he got married to Delilah, which was actually the will of God (Judges 14:1-4). But along the line, Delilah his wife sought to know the secret of his great might and how he could be defeated.
She tried thrice to obtain the information, but Samson deceived her. And each time Samson deceived her, she attempted to defile Samson, so he could be destroyed by the Philistines. So it was very glaring to Samson that Delilah was bent on destroying him, but yet Samson allowed himself to fall for her emotional blackmails.
And when Samson fell for Delilah’s emotional blackmail, she took the advantage, and defiled and destroyed Samson (see Judges 16:4-31). Like Adam and Eve, when Samson lost his steadfastness and fell, God left him, and eventually, he punished the Philistines as well.
In the two examples cited above, we see that the victims were obedient and resilient for some time, but they eventually lost their resistance; and it cost them their glorious destinies. But then on the good side, Joseph, our Lord Jesus and other faithful saints were tempted severally but they remained steadfast to the very end, and it earned them eternal glory.
So the Lord’s clarion call with this very message is that we should be steadfast. God wants us to remain steadfast and unmovable at such a time as this, when the love of many are already waxing cold as the Lord says it would be (Matthew 24:12). At such a time as this, when tribulations and temptations are very much on the rise in the entire world. In 1Peter 5:8-9; Peter by the Spirit says; “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.”
The above quoted scripture says we should be sober and vigilant, because our adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, is going about, seeking whom he may devour. And for ages and generations he has been consistently succeeding in devouring the souls of men, including so many precious children of God. Mainly because of lack of steadfastness in resisting him, in his diverse whims and caprices (whiles).
So the Lord will have us continually be on our spiritual guard steadfastly or rigidly against the devil and his agents. God wants us to steadfastly resist the devil in whatever form or through whomever he comes to us. He may come through our thoughts, but we must steadfastly and tenaciously resist him to the very end. Receive the grace for steadfastness in the faith right now in the mighty name of Jesus Christ.
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