Stand Firm: Your Faith in an Age of Deception
The quiet erosion of faith doesn't announce itself with dramatic departures or headline-worthy scandals. It begins with a compromised conversation here, a subtle shift in conviction there. Before you realize it, the spiritual ground beneath your feet has shifted, and you're standing on sand instead of rock.
Paul warned Timothy explicitly: in later times, some will abandon the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and demonic teachings. This isn't ancient history—it's your reality today. The question isn't whether spiritual deception exists around you. The question is: are you equipped to recognize it?
The Message Test
Every spiritual voice competing for your attention carries an influence behind it—either the Spirit of God or the spirit of the antichrist. There's no neutral ground. When someone teaches about Jesus, the accuracy of their message about His incarnation, His full deity and full humanity, reveals everything. A distorted Christ leads to a distorted gospel, and a distorted gospel cannot save.
Think about the spiritual content you consume daily. The podcasts queued on your phone. The reels you scroll through during lunch. The books stacked on your nightstand. Are they pointing you toward the biblical Christ, or are they subtly reshaping Him into something more palatable to contemporary sensibilities?
False teaching rarely announces itself with obvious error. It masquerades as enlightened truth, progressive spirituality, or grace-filled flexibility. But when the world applauds a Christian leader's message without resistance, something has gone wrong. The gospel doesn't comfort the unregenerate heart—it confronts it.
The Love Test
But testing external voices isn't enough. You must also test your own heart. John makes an uncomfortable declaration: if you don't love, you don't know God. Not "you're struggling in your faith" or "you need to work on that." If you don't love, you remain in death.
This isn't about warm feelings or occasional kindness. It's about sacrificial action modeled after Christ's self-giving love. He laid down His life for you—are you laying down yours for fellow believers? The member of your church walking through financial crisis, the family dealing with chronic illness, the newcomer who doesn't fit your social circle—they're not inconveniences to your comfort. They're opportunities to prove God's love is being perfected in you.
When Doubt Creeps In
Perhaps you're reading this while wrestling with doubts about your faith. The enemy's strategy is predictable: isolate you, flood you with worldly voices, make departure seem reasonable. But this is precisely the moment to press into Christ, not pull away. Open Scripture, not skeptical podcasts. Cry out "I believe; help my unbelief" instead of entertaining every deconstructionist argument.
The Lord transforms what is broken. Of that, you can be certain.
Your faith doesn't need insulation from questions—it needs the solid foundation of biblical truth, tested daily through genuine love for God's people. Test the spirits. Test your love. Stand firm.
Paul warned Timothy explicitly: in later times, some will abandon the faith by paying attention to deceitful spirits and demonic teachings. This isn't ancient history—it's your reality today. The question isn't whether spiritual deception exists around you. The question is: are you equipped to recognize it?
The Message Test
Every spiritual voice competing for your attention carries an influence behind it—either the Spirit of God or the spirit of the antichrist. There's no neutral ground. When someone teaches about Jesus, the accuracy of their message about His incarnation, His full deity and full humanity, reveals everything. A distorted Christ leads to a distorted gospel, and a distorted gospel cannot save.
Think about the spiritual content you consume daily. The podcasts queued on your phone. The reels you scroll through during lunch. The books stacked on your nightstand. Are they pointing you toward the biblical Christ, or are they subtly reshaping Him into something more palatable to contemporary sensibilities?
False teaching rarely announces itself with obvious error. It masquerades as enlightened truth, progressive spirituality, or grace-filled flexibility. But when the world applauds a Christian leader's message without resistance, something has gone wrong. The gospel doesn't comfort the unregenerate heart—it confronts it.
The Love Test
But testing external voices isn't enough. You must also test your own heart. John makes an uncomfortable declaration: if you don't love, you don't know God. Not "you're struggling in your faith" or "you need to work on that." If you don't love, you remain in death.
This isn't about warm feelings or occasional kindness. It's about sacrificial action modeled after Christ's self-giving love. He laid down His life for you—are you laying down yours for fellow believers? The member of your church walking through financial crisis, the family dealing with chronic illness, the newcomer who doesn't fit your social circle—they're not inconveniences to your comfort. They're opportunities to prove God's love is being perfected in you.
When Doubt Creeps In
Perhaps you're reading this while wrestling with doubts about your faith. The enemy's strategy is predictable: isolate you, flood you with worldly voices, make departure seem reasonable. But this is precisely the moment to press into Christ, not pull away. Open Scripture, not skeptical podcasts. Cry out "I believe; help my unbelief" instead of entertaining every deconstructionist argument.
The Lord transforms what is broken. Of that, you can be certain.
Your faith doesn't need insulation from questions—it needs the solid foundation of biblical truth, tested daily through genuine love for God's people. Test the spirits. Test your love. Stand firm.
This week’s blog draws from the message shared by Associate Discipleship Pastor Brandon Ferguson on Sunday, November 9. You can watch the full message here.
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