There are times in our lives as Christians when our faith becomes tested. Many things press hard against us, attempting to dislodge us from our belief in the Lord Jesus Christ and what the Word of God says. When these happen, we need to hold on to what God said in the Word so that we can weather what we are going through.
Pressing Hard
Being hard-pressed need not mean being persecuted for your faith. While it includes open aggression towards our Christian faith, like what is happening to various Christians around the world, it also includes other things that test our faith: emotional stress; financial woes; and even the relationships we have with people, believers or not.
To help us stand strong against these circumstances and events, we need to hold on to and stand on the Word of God. Here are some verses that will encourage us when we are hard-pressed and are tempted to quit the faith.
Romans 5:1-5 – "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and so we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also boast in tribulation, knowing that tribulation produces patience, patience produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
Hebrews 12:1-3 – "Therefore, since we are encompassed with such a great cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Let us look to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and your hearts give up."
2 Corinthians 4:7-11 – "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh."
John 16:32-33 – "Listen, the hour is coming. Yes, it has now come that you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave Me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with Me. I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world."
Romans 8:37-39 – "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities nor powers, neither things present nor things to come, neither height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
