Stand Firm
With piracy in the news these days, I’ve often wondered if I would ever end up confronting pirates on my travels along rivers and ocean coastlines. During my recent trip to Nicaragua, we were traveling in a boat in the open ocean off the coast when a ship came charging at our boat and I thought, “Well, here we go!” You could see the people in the ship were agitated and I thought, “They’re pirates.”
Fortunately, it turned out that the people in the ship were only the bureaucrats from Bluefields, Nicaragua who represent the village of Monkey Point. The bureaucrats were angry because they couldn’t steal money from us and they made it very clear that I could never go back to Monkey Point. After this little confrontation, they left.
A day later the people of Monkey Point called me to apologize for the bureaucrats and to tell me that they had thrown them out of the village. The pirates got the boot and now the village of Monkey Point is ready to flourish.
Are you being persecuted at work by people who think you’re narrow minded because you believe in the one true God? Does your family criticize you and call you intolerant because you have faith in Jesus and in Him alone? There are “pirates” everywhere and their purpose is to destroy our faith in God and damage our Christian testimony. Let me encourage you to stand up for what you believe in and never waver in your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 Paul encouraged the church at Corinth to:
“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love.”
The Word of God clearly informs us that we will have trials and tribulations when we follow Christ. To be victorious we must be vigilant in our prayers, never compromising in our beliefs and demonstrate courage in the midst of our storms.
