What Does It Mean to “Stand Fast”?

Posted on April 12, 2026 by Wayne Davies

I’ve been reading Paul’s letters lately.

Here’s one of the most positive things he ever wrote to one of the churches he started:

“Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love.”
1 Thessalonians 3:6

After leaving town because of intense opposition from the Jews (see Acts 17:1-10), Paul was so concerned about the young Christians in Thessalonica that he sent Timothy to find out how they were doing. Like Paul, they, too, were facing persecution, and Paul wrote this letter to encourage them to continue in the faith in the midst of much affliction and tribulation.

When Paul hears how well they are doing spiritually, he is greatly encouraged:

“We have been comforted about you through your faith. For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord. For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before God” (1 Thessalonians 3:7-8).

I was confused, however, when I read the phrase, “standing fast” (ESV). What does that mean? How can we “stand fast”? I know how to stand still, but how do I stand fast?

So I went to BibleGateway.com and looked up how other translations render this verse. Here’s the New American Standard Bible:

“For now we really live, if you stand firm in the Lord.”
1 Thessalonians 3:8 NASB

“Stand firm” makes more sense to me than “Stand fast”!

Then I went to BibleRef.com and learned even more about the meaning of “stand firm.”

The Greek word for “stand firm” is “a military term that describes soldiers firmly holding their ground against an enemy.” The Thessalonian believers were “holding their ground against attacks from the Devil and his forces. False teachers were trying to detour them from the truth, and persecution was fierce. Nevertheless, they stood firm. They grasped the anchor of hope firmly so they would not drift away from the faith.”

Paul used this word often to motivate believers to continue in the faith while enduring opposition and affliction . . .

“Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”
1 Corinthians 16:13

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore, keep standing firm.”
Galatians 5:1

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.”
Ephesians 6:11

“Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, whom I long to see, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.”
Philippians 4:1

Perhaps you are facing opposition from those hostile to the faith, or maybe you are experiencing stress from any number of difficult circumstances. If so, please join me in praying this prayer:

Oh God, please give me and my believing friends the faith to stand firm in Christ! Strengthen our resolve to be faithful to you – no matter what happens to us and regardless of what happens in the world. Keep us strong in the faith, “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

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A Special Easter Message

Posted on April 5, 2026 by Wayne Davies

Good Friday and Easter Sunday are the two most important days in the history of the world.

We celebrate Good Friday because this is the day Christ died to save us from “the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:16-17).

 

And we celebrate Easter Sunday because this is the day Christ rose from the dead to conquer sin, death, and the devil.

Praise be to God, this is the day we say to one another,
“He is risen!”
“He is risen indeed!”

Praise be to God, this is the day we sing . . .
“Because He lives, I can face tomorrow
Because He lives, all fear is gone!”

I have two questions I’d like to address in this email.

Question #1:
How important is the resurrection of Jesus Christ to your eternal destiny?

It is so important that we must believe it happened to receive salvation from hell.

“If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” (Romans 10:9-10)

And if you don’t, you won’t.

Whether or not you believe in both a crucified and risen Savior determines your eternal destiny.

If you are reading this blog post and have yet to believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and a right standing with God, I beg you to heed the words of the apostle Paul, “Behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).

Don’t wait until tomorrow to do what Jesus tells us all to do: “Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).

Question #2:
How relevant is the resurrection of Jesus Christ to your everyday life?

If you are a genuine believer in Christ and therefore a faithful follower of Christ, the resurrection of Jesus is one of the most practical truths of Scripture. It is the key that unlocks a life of transcendent joy and personal holiness.

This is a bold statement. What is the biblical basis for such a claim?

Consider these words:

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1)

Here’s another verse in which Paul says that believers have “been buried with Him (Jesus) in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God” (Colossians 2:12).

This is huge. Because believers are “in Christ” (we are supernaturally united to Christ as members of His body, the church), when Christ died, we died.

Furthermore, when Christ was raised from the dead, so were we!

We, too, were raised from the dead because God raised us from a state of spiritual death and gave us new life in Christ.

Yes, one day our dead bodies will be resurrected from the grave.

But today our spirits are already alive with the life of Christ pulsating within us.

We are already possessors of God’s supernatural life that energizes and transforms our existence – the life of Christ resides within our souls through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Rejoice, my fellow believer, in the present and powerful reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Because He lives, so can you – today and forever.

Have a wonderfully alive Easter Sunday!

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A Short Bible Study on King Jesus and His Kingdom

Posted on March 29, 2026 by Wayne Davies

Today is Palm Sunday, when Christians celebrate the “Triumphal Entry” of King Jesus into Jerusalem, riding on a donkey.

Matthew 21:1-11 contains one account of this historic event. (Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-40, and John 12:12-19 are parallel passages.)

7 They brought the donkey and the colt and put on them their cloaks, and he sat on them. 8 Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 And the crowds that went before him and that followed him were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”
Matthew 21:7-9

In verse 5, we note that Matthew quotes Zechariah 9:9 to show that Jesus is fulfilling one of many Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah, the King of Israel:

“Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your king is coming to you, humble, and mounted on a donkey, and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’

When the people shouted, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!,” they were quoting Psalm 118:26.

The other gospel writers also provide evidence that the crowds believed that they were welcoming Israel’s Messiah (the Christ) and King to Jerusalem:

“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!” (Mark 11:9-10)

“Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 19:38)

“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” (John 12:13)

But Jesus did not establish his kingdom on earth when he came 2,000 years ago – certainly not in the physical and political sense. He will do that when he comes the next time. As predicted in the book of Revelation, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 11:15)

In the meantime, Jesus does reign in the hearts of his people, and believers are the subjects and citizens of his spiritual kingdom.

Questions for Reflection:

What does living as a citizen of Christ’s spiritual kingdom mean to you?

In your own life, how do you demonstrate that Jesus is your King – your Supreme Ruler and Absolute Sovereign?

For help, read and meditate on these passages:
Matthew 4:17, Matthew 6:31-34, Matthew 7:21-23, Matthew 25:31-46, and Romans 14:17.

Feel free to respond to these questions by leaving a comment below.

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What the Bible Says about the Love of Jesus

Posted on March 22, 2026 by Wayne Davies

Lately, I find myself thinking about the love of Jesus.

Here’s a verse that jumps off the page and into my heart.

“Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
John 13:1

Jesus loved his own . . . to the end.

Those last three words have been thrilling my soul. Here’s why.

At first glance, it appears that John is telling us that Jesus loved the apostles, whose feet He is about to wash, right down to the end of His time with them. And that is certainly true.

But there’s more to this phrase, “to the end.”

I looked up this verse on BibleGateway.com, and virtually all translations and paraphrases use the same words, “to the end.”  But I found one that was different – the Amplified Bible renders this verse as follows:

“[Now] before the Passover Feast began, Jesus knew (was fully aware) that the time had come for Him to leave this world and return to the Father. And as He had loved those who were His own in the world, He loved them to the last and to the highest degree.”

Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words confirms the validity of the Amplified Bible by translating this phrase “to the utmost degree.”

That’s the kind of love that Jesus has for us. He loves us with a perfect, incomparable love. It’s off the charts. His love is the greatest love possible because “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)

Only God has this love, and He has poured it out on us through His Son, the Lord Jesus.

I’m blown away by this love because I am so undeserving of it. He doesn’t love me because I’m lovable. On the contrary, His love is amazing because I’m so unlovable. Why would He love — and even save — “a wretch like me”?

This is what Jesus’ love is like. He loves us to the highest and utmost degree. He loves us completely, perfectly, and eternally.

If you know Jesus, you will be the recipient of this love forever.

May we find contentment, peace, and joy in the love of Jesus today.

“It is staggering that God should love sinners, yet it is true.”
J.I. Packer

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Are We All God’s Children?

Posted on March 15, 2026 by Wayne Davies

“We’re all God’s children!”

Have you heard that before?

But is it true?

In a biological sense, I guess you could say that.

Every person on the planet can trace their genealogical roots back to Adam and Eve. It’s true that all people are God’s creation.

But in the spiritual sense, no.

In the spiritual realm, there are two types of people: the children of Satan and the children of God. This is why Jesus told the Jews who did not believe in Him: “You are of your Father, the devil” (John 8:44).

Therefore, in Scripture, non-believers are never called “God’s children. They are called “sons of disobedience” and “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2:2, 3).

But thanks be to God, believers in Christ become children of God when they first put their faith in Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God.

“Sonship to God is not, therefore, a universal status upon which everyone enters by natural birth, but a supernatural gift which one receives through receiving Jesus . . . Sonship to God, then, is a gift of grace.” (J.I. Packer, Knowing God)

Our salvation brings many spiritual blessings – and one of those blessings is that we become children of God because God has adopted us into his family. He is now our heavenly Father, and we are His sons and daughters.

Paul explains this wonderful truth in Galatians 4:4-6 —

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.  And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’  So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Isn’t this amazing: God sent Jesus to earth to save us from our slavery to sin and make us His children.

He adopted us! And now we belong to Him and can trust Him to take care of us as only He can.

John also writes about the great privilege of sonship:

“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are . . . Beloved, we are God’s children now”
1 John 3:1-2.

I love the word “now” in the above verse. This is reason for us to rejoice. If you know God through His Son Jesus, you are a child of God . . . right now.

Think about that for a while, and for the rest of your life.

“If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctly Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God.”
(J.I. Packer, Knowing God)

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“I’m OK with God Because I’m A Good Person”

Posted on March 8, 2026 by Wayne Davies

One of my favorite Bible teachers is Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason.

He’s been doing a series of “rapid-fire” critiques to common pushbacks to Christianity that you might face in conversations with others.

This post features one of the most common misunderstandings that most people have:

“I’m Basically A Good Person.”

(Permission granted by Stand to Reason. Copyright 2026 Gregory Koukl).

The vast majority of Americans believe in Hell, apparently, but almost no one thinks they’re going there. Their reason? “I’m basically a good person,” they say. They’re only little sinners, by their reckoning, since their good deeds vastly outweigh their bad ones. Their misplaced confidence is based on two points of confusion.

The first confusion comes from defining “basically good” according to human standards. God, on this view, is concerned with what kind of individual one is “on average.” If there’s more good than bad—if good is predominant—then God winks at the occasional moral lapse.

But justice never works that way, does it? The law demands that each person obey every law always, not most laws most of the time. No amount of good behavior can pay for bad behavior. Period. Law requires consistent compliance, and that which is already owed—obedience—cannot be used to pay for past errors.

A person may be an upstanding citizen all his life, but one single crime is still going to bring him before the court. He’ll never get a letter from the DA saying, “You’ve been a good, law-abiding citizen for five years. Go out and beat up a few innocent bystanders and rob a few gas stations—on us. You’ve got credit in your account.”

If you’re still not clear on this point, ask yourself what commandment of God—or any law of any country, for that matter—one can violate with impunity without fear of punishment.

God, like all lawgivers, requires nothing less than moral perfection. “But that’s impossible,” you say. You’re right. That is why we need a Savior. That’s the only way we can be right with God when we’re not thoroughly good.

The second confusion is tied to math. The “basically good” person simply hasn’t run the numbers and needs to do the calculus. For example, counting only the sins he’s committed from, say, his tenth birthday to his sixtieth—just fifty years—how many sins would he have committed if he’d only sinned ten times a day?

Of course, ten sins a day is a modest projection. Keep in mind we’re not only talking about rape, pillaging, murder, and theft. Sin includes the full range of human moral failings before God—heart attitudes and motives as well as actions, including failing to love God with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength and failing to love others as ourselves.

If a person sinned just ten times a day for only 50 years, what would his rap sheet look like? He would have amassed 182,500 infractions of the law. What judge would turn anyone loose with a record like that? And that is a best-case scenario. In reality, each of us would fare much worse.

Whenever you’re tempted to trust in your own ability, take a good look at the standard, God’s Law (you’ll find it in Exodus 20), then look at your own rap sheet. To use Paul’s words, the Law “has shut up everyone under sin” (Gal. 3:22). It’s closed our mouths, and we all have become accountable to God (Rom. 3:19).

The psalmist says, “If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?”
(Ps. 130:3). Saved by our own goodness? Hardly. God’s Law gives us no hope.

EDITOR’S NOTE:
For more great Bible teaching from Greg Koukl and his team at Stand to Reason, visit www.str.org.

I highly recommend his books, Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions  and Street Smarts: Using Questions to Answer Christianity’s Toughest Challenges (available on Amazon). If you’re serious about engaging non-Christians in substantive conversations about the gospel, and need help doing so, these books will give you a boatload of biblically based strategies for effective evangelism.

 

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How to Pray for Vladimir Putin

Posted on March 1, 2026 by Wayne Davies


Unfortunately, the Russia/Ukraine military conflict has now been going on for four years.

In May 2022, a few months after the war started, I wrote this blog post:

What the Bible Says about Praying for Vladimir Putin

I commend this article to you today – not only because it provides straightforward Bible teaching on how to pray for any leader of any country, but because it dives into some of the most difficult passages in Scripture: the imprecatory psalms.

Christians disagree on how to interpret these psalms.

If this is a topic you’d like to explore further, please click on the link above. I welcome your feedback, so let me know your thoughts on this puzzling topic by leaving a comment.

 

Posted in Prayer, Thoughts on the Psalms, What the Bible Says | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Infinite Greatness of Jesus

Posted on February 22, 2026 by Wayne Davies

I’ve been reading through the New Testament this year, one book at a time.

I started with Mark, then John. Now I’m reading Matthew. I read a chapter each day, five or six days a week.

After reading the chapter, I go back through the text and ask God to show me one verse or paragraph to meditate on. This can present a challenge because there are so many worthy verses in every chapter!

But within a few minutes, I usually find myself drawn to one particular paragraph, verse, sentence, phrase, or word, and I focus on that.

Yesterday I read Matthew 12. I took a different approach here because it became evident that there is a recurring theme throughout the chapter: the identity of Jesus. This is a prominent theme throughout the New Testament, and especially in the four gospels.

I can’t get away from it. And if you read any of the gospel accounts, you can’t get away from it either. God has gone out of His way to answer this question: Who is Jesus?

Here is the answer to that question in Matthew 12:

JESUS IS . . .
Greater than the temple (v. 6)
The guiltless (v. 7)
The Son of Man (v. 8)
Lord of the Sabbath (v. 8)
My servant whom I  have chosen (v. 18)
My beloved with whom my soul is well pleased (v. 18)
The Son of David (v. 23)
Greater than Jonah (v. 41)
Greater than Solomon (v. 42)

Then I went back through each of these titles and descriptive phrases and noticed who the speaker was:

JESUS SAID . . .
Something greater than the temple is here
Something greater than Jonah is here
Something greater than Solomon is here

JESUS SAID . . .
If you had known what this means, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,” you would not have condemned the guiltless

JESUS SAID . . .
The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath

THE FATHER SAID (through Isaiah) . . .
Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

THE PEOPLE SAID . . .
Can this be the Son of David?

I am often overwhelmed by the clarity of Scripture. So I offered this prayer of thanks to God:

“Father, thank you for making the identity of Jesus so crystal clear! He is the Messiah, the Christ — the Son of David and the Son of Man. He is God’s beloved Servant, the guiltless One. You are well pleased with your chosen Son because He is greater than the temple, greater than Jonah, and greater than Solomon – He is greater than everyone and everything because He is Lord – Lord of the Sabbath and Lord of all! And He is Lord of all because He is God. Thank you for the clarity of Scripture. Amen.”

This is why we worship Jesus: because of who He is. He is infinitely greater than anything or anyone in the universe. He said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), because He and the Father, along with the Holy Spirit, are God.

Does it matter whether we believe what the Bible says about the identity of Jesus?

Absolutely. Our eternal destiny depends on it.

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.” (John 3:36)

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The Love of Jesus on Display

Posted on February 15, 2026 by Wayne Davies

In John 11, the story of the resurrection of Lazarus, the empathetic love of Jesus is on display.

Christ exhibits this compassion after the death of Lazarus and the resulting grief of his sisters, Mary and Martha.

 

“When Jesus saw her (Mary) weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled” (v. 33)

“Jesus wept. So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him’ (v. 35-36)

“Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb” (v. 38)

Jesus arrives at the scene, sees how sad they are, and He too is overcome with sadness and weeps with them. He was both “deeply moved” and “greatly troubled.”

The phrase “deeply moved” can include a person’s anger. The New Living Translation renders it, “a deep anger welled up inside him.”

Why was Jesus angry? The Amplified Bible offers this paraphrase: “He was deeply moved in spirit to the point of anger at the sorrow caused by death.” 

Mark Johnston, in his book Let’s Study John, provides this explanation:

“The word is much stronger in the original and is closer to being ‘outraged in spirit’ or ‘indignant and angry.’ It is Jesus’ instinctive reaction to the presence of death in the world that he made.

“As a race, and even as Christians, we have become too accustomed to death and too ready to regard it as ‘normal.’ We see it as simply the final step in the sequence of life. For Jesus, nothing could be further from the truth. For him, death was an ugly intruder in his beautiful world. It was a curse: the very antithesis of the life that is cradled in creation. He displays all the disgust of the Creator whose good creation has been marred and scarred by the presence of an evil intrusion.

“In a thrilling way, his strength of feeling reflects his determination to overcome death once and for all.”

Even though Jesus knew that He would soon raise Lazarus from the dead and all this sorrow would be turned to joy, His love for Martha and Mary compelled Him to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).

He was indeed “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). He was intimately aware of the pain of his dear friends, and He shared their sadness as His own.

This is the Jesus who “loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus” (v. 15). And this is the Jesus who loves you and me. I take much comfort in that.

How about you?

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Why Did John Write the Book of John?

Posted on February 8, 2026 by Wayne Davies

I’m always thankful when a writer tells me his or her purpose for writing.

For example, the Apostle John told us why he wrote the fourth gospel:

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”
John 20:30-31

John wrote this book so that the reader would believe that Jesus is who He said He is: the Christ (the Messiah promised in the Old Testament), and the Son of God (i.e., God the Son).

Furthermore, John wrote this book so that the reader can have, through faith in Jesus, life – eternal life!

Only by believing in Jesus as Messiah and God can anyone have life – spiritual life. This is a key component of the gospel message that Jesus gave His disciples to take to all peoples of the world.

Because we are all born in sin, we come into the world as the living dead – physically alive but spiritually dead. But thanks be to God, He sent His Son into the world so that “whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

This is reason to get excited. This is reason to wake up in the morning.

If you are a believer in Jesus, you have life. You are no longer a living corpse, and you will not end up in the lake of fire with the devil and his thugs. Jesus said so:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” (John 5:24).

This is a recurring theme in John’s gospel: God offers eternal life to all through faith in His Son.

Let repetition continue to be our teacher today:

“Whoever believes in Him may have eternal life” (3:15)
“Whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (3:16)
“Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the Son of God” (3:18)
“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the last day” (John 6:40)
“Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water” (7:38)
“Jesus said to her (Martha), I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (11:25-26)
“Jesus said to him (Thomas), Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (20:29)

So when we come to the end of John’s account, we should not be surprised when he tells us that the purpose of his book is for us to believe in Jesus unto eternal life. In fact, the word “believe” occurs 98 times in the book of John. And the word “life” appears 36 times.

This begs the question, What does it mean to “believe” in Jesus?

Do you believe in Jesus? If so, what does that entail? How would you define and describe “faith in Christ”? How would you explain it to someone?

Let me know your thoughts on this by leaving a comment below.

Posted in Faith, Gospel of John Bible Study, Heaven and Hell, Jesus Christ, Salvation | Leave a comment