Christian Living (1 Cor. 16:13)

Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.
(1 Corinthians 16:13, NASB)

Paul is winding down his lengthy letter to the Corinthian. He has a few last greetings, which we’ll see in the next couple of days, but today, we’ll look at his last admonitions. Before we do so, I want to take a quick look at a couple of paraphrases of this verse:

The Message says, “Keep your eyes open, hold tight to your convictions, give it all you've got, be resolute, and love without stopping.”

And the Contemporary English Version says, “Keep alert. Be firm in your faith. Stay brave and strong.”

So let’s look at these last instructions from this letter:

Be on the alert. In another letter, Paul wrote, “Be on your guard and stay awake. Your enemy, the devil, is like a roaring lion, sneaking around to find someone to attack.” We are in a battle every day, and we need to stay awake, stay alert, be aware of the wiles and lies of the enemy.

Stand firm in faith. I did a quick search of the New American Standard version, and Paul uses the phrase “stand firm” 13 times. I particularly like how the Message puts it: we need to “… hold tight to [our] convictions.” We need to understand and stand on our faith in Jesus Christ.

Act like men, be strong. This doesn’t mean we should all be men. It means we need be strong and brave to withstand the attack of the enemy.

Let all that you do be done in love. This is the bottom line … we need to love each other. We need to go back to chapter 13 frequently. We need to be patient, kind, non-judgmental. We need to love as Christ loves. Unconditionally. Without fail.

No one ever said it was easy to be a Christian. But if we meditate on God’s word, and we strive to live according to God’s commandments and admonitions in it, we’ll become more and more the people God created us to be.