“Therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for, my joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved.” (Philippians 4:1, KJV)
There are times in life when we must stand our ground. When I was in manufacturing management, I encountered a situation where I needed to stand my ground. I managed a department that made cardboard boxes. One of our machines laminated a printed paper on the board and then die-cut the box to its finished shape. This machine was poorly designed and notoriously difficult to set-up and run. It could easily waste 10 to 20 percent on an order, which would result in losing a lot of money for the operation.
The machine operators were frustrated with the operation of the machine. Moreover, I became tired of reporting losses to the company due to the poor performance of this machine. So, one day I went into the morning production meeting and stated that I shut down the machine and would not start it up again until something was done to fix its design flaws. Of course, this was a major issue with the company. They had product orders that would not run any other machine. The company management exerted a lot of pressure on me to produce the orders for that machine, but I stood my ground. The operating crew was demoralized in running it and I could not see running it due to the losses. Well, the company finally brought in the engineering department to redesign the equipment. You see, there is a time when we must stand our ground.
In this passage, Paul called upon the Philippians to stand their ground. He expressed his love for them and then told them, “so stand fast in the Lord.” Why did he tell them this? It was because they had a glorious future guaranteed. In the previous verse he stated that they were fellow citizens of heaven and that a time was coming when the Lord would transform them. He would move them from mortal existence to a resurrected and glorious form of a body immortal. Thus, while in their earthly bodies Paul exhorted them to stand firm in the Lord.
Standing firm is not always easy. In the situation I had in the manufacturing facility, there was much pressure put on me to cave in and run the defective equipment. My stand may have cost me my job. However, for the sake of the moral of the operating crew and the future of the department someone had to take a stand.
When we look at our glorious future as believers, we have no choice but to take a stand. Today, there is a lot of pressure from the world system to have us compromise our stand on the truth. The temptation is to hide our light under a bushel, to hide our Christianity in the closet. The temptation is often to seek temporal satisfaction rather than that which results in eternal bliss. We must be careful to stand firm on the truth of God’s word and His righteousness. We must stand firm in the Lord.
Renewing the Heart 