Christ is All I Need: Anchored in Faith

 

if indeed you remain in the faith, established and firm, without shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard. Colossians 1:23a

 Wavering, shifting, does that sound like you? Do you find yourself at peace in one moment and anxious in the next? Or perhaps you know, or know of, someone who was firm in their faith and then fell away? The truth is we have an enemy, one who seeks to steal, kill and destroy. He will do anything in his power to distract us, to keep us from the great inheritance that we have in Christ Jesus. But he is not, ultimately, in charge. God is.

 Colossians 1:17 tells us that, “He himself is before all things and all things are held together in him.” We don’t have to be pulled away by the enemy. So, how do we stay firm? How do we, “remain in the faith, established and firm, without shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard”?

 First, we have to have that hope. We have to give our lives to Jesus, admitting our sin debt and need for His covering, and accepting the free gift of grace and forgiveness that He offers. The most important step in this process of standing firm, is having something to stand on, and this is it. We must find our peace, our salvation, our hope in Jesus Christ alone. Nothing else can hold us, nothing else can save us.

 Next, we need to invest in this relationship we now have with our Almighty Creator God. If we had a beautiful wedding, and then went about our own business and never interacted with our spouse, what kind of a marriage would we have? Likewise, we need to invest in our relationship with God by daily praying, reading His Word, and growing in our faith. This is going to look differently for everyone, and in different seasons in their life as well. For some, this means reading a daily devotional with scripture, for others it might look like hours daily devoted to learning, and for another it could be a prayer closet filled with intervention for the world. There is no bar, no minimum, no clear line of what each of us should be doing – that’s where relationship comes in. Every one looks different and you have to learn to navigate it based on who you are and how God designed you to interact with Him. The most important part? DO SOMETHING. By doing something, you can see what works, what doesn’t, and adjust as you go.

Finally, this hope, this faith God has planted in our hearts, needs to be our anchor. We need to, “remain in the faith, established and firm, without shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.” When trouble comes, our reset, our default, our pivot point always needs to be this truth that is rooted in our hearts. And the first two steps establish this in our hearts. If we don’t have that hope to begin with, or we haven’t nurtured it in times of peace, then when trouble comes we are far less likely to fall back on it. Our faith isn’t a fire blanket. It isn’t meant to hang on a wall next to us, just waiting for an emergency. It is armor that is meant to be put on daily, worn constantly, used at all times.

Here’s the Thing: Remain in the faith. In order to remain there, you have to start there. In order to remain there, you have to engage with it, grow in it, dive deeper. In order to remain there, it must be our central, anchor point. But oh, once it is, what a beautiful peace and joy it brings!