The Bible for Women

Weekly Devotional

This is the second in a series of five lessons which embraces songs in our worship by my friend and sister in Christ, Wanda Hankins.

In my second song for this Series on Songs, I’ve chosen ‘Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus’.

Read the words:

Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus

Stand up, stand up for Jesus! Ye soldiers of the cross; Lift high his royal banner,It must not suffer loss; From vict’ry unto vict’ry His army shall He lead, Till ev’ry foe is vanquished, For Christ is Lord indeed.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus! The trumpet call obey;Forth to the mighty conflict In this His glorious day. Ye that are men now serve him Against unnumbered foes;Let courage rise with danger, And strength to strength oppose.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus! Stand in His strength alone;The arm of flesh will fail you, Ye dare not trust your own;Put on the gospel armor, And watching unto prayer,Where duty calls, or danger, Be never wanting there.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus! The strife will not be long; This day the noise of battle, The next the victor’s song; To Him that over-cometh A crown of life shall be; He with the King of Glory Shall reign eternally.

Isn’t this a beautiful song? It makes me want to stand up and fight the world and all it’s evils! Ah, but that is what we are supposed to do, isn’t it? When we become Christians, we become a part of God’s army. Our ultimate goal is Heaven but our goal while here on this earth is to stand up for Jesus. We are not to cower down and allow words and deeds to happen which are against what Jesus has taught us. We are to try to bring others to Christ’s army of believers! Bringing others to this army takes commitment to His cause. It takes determination to do His will. And it takes love to show to others what Jesus has given to us!

When we use commitment, we dare not trust ourselves to do it all. This is when we pray for His guidance and strength. When we use determination, we have to realize that the steps we take to speak up for Jesus and to bring others to Him, mean that we will be stepping out of our “comfort zone”. And, of course, when we use love, we honor His second commandment which is written in Mark 12:31 “And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.”

" Love thy neighbor" means we are to love everyone around us! We don’t have to love what they may have done but we are supposed to love them as children of God. It is our choice to either let each of those “neighbors” who pass through our lives exit our life with no interaction from us or we can choose to leave our “comfort zones” and share the words of God with each of those “neighbors”.

Read again what I just said…...It is our choice to either let each of those “neighbors” who pass through our life exit our lives with no interaction from us or we can choose to leave our “comfort zones” and share the words of God with each of those “neighbors”.

Choose to follow what God would want us to do! Be strong! Be brave! Stand up! Stand up for Jesus!

May God grant you courage this day! Wanda