Galatians 5:1
	Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

		Over the course of the past months, there has been a difficulty in my life that has caused a tremendous amount of anguish in my spiritual development. It has been a matter that has affected not only myself and my relationship with the Lord, but my dealings with others including my wife, children and many others that I sincerely love. It was with serious consideration of the developing void in my spiritual being that I acquiesced to go before the Lord for the sake of this fellowship, for my fellowship with Him.
		You see, part of the difficulty that I was experiencing, was my stubbornness to go to the Lord. I was not being steadfast in my relationship with Him. He has taken our marriage through the buffets and rocks of emotional and physical upheaval in order to show that a steadfast clinging to the Lord is necessary for the very survival of a marriage relationship. He has taken my relationship as a father through extremely treacherous pathways of frustration and sheer life support in order to further deepen a continued reliance upon Him to provide everything necessary for that relationship to continue and to develop.
		These are just a couple of instances of earthly dependencies that He has so faithfully been working to develop, not that they are complete, because they require a steady ongoing in Him, with each other, to come to the fruition of Christ. And that is the point of this evening's passage and consideration. Our lives are to be characterized by a steady, on-going, relationship with the Lord that will bring forth the evidence of the abiding in Christ that we have been so blessedly considering in the last weeks. And that was not true in my life.
		I had, and I do pray with all my heart, that this is a past tense confession, but I had not been faithful to the Lord in steadfastly seeking after Him to develop my relationship with Him. I was in bondage to the things of this world, a bondage which I had permitted to pre-empt my spiritual increase and desires after Christ. 
		Believe me, it was not what some denominations decry as being backsliden, as if that were possible. It was far worse. It was a deadening denial of the full focus of my attention to the Lord. It was a refusal on my part to acknowledge the rightful place of God in my life. It was a sickening morass of priorities which I had allowed to be put askew in order that I could have my way, rather than His way in my desires.
		It was a denial of the liberty of Christ living His life in me. It was a prison of self-righteousness, self-desires, self-goals and self-will placed before God's will in my heart. And, glory be to God, I was brought face-to-face with the bondage of this horrible prison of self, in having to seek after Him for what He would desire to bring forth this evening.
		He had to break asunder that prison cell of self, in order to cause the desire to share the liberty of Christ triumphant this evening. He could not permit the slavery of self-will to dominate the true and earnest desires expressed in one of His to abide in Him. 
		Such is the prologue for this evening, the confession of one who is learning but some of the many aspects of the first truths of this Galatian text. Stand fast... This is a command delivered by the Apostle Paul to all those who are in Christ Jesus. It implies an active participation on the part of believers to make a conscious effort to remain steadfastly focused on the liberty of Christ Jesus and not to allow ourselves to become entangled in the things other than Christ.
		This is a direct response to the question that is so often asked by Christians when they are facing dilemmas and trials of this realm, as the Christians at Galatia were facing in the pressures of the Judiazers, those individuals that were pressing them to take the yoke of the law upon themselves, rather than relying on Christ for their salvation. These Christians were facing a difficult time, as newer Christians as to what was right for them to do. They were being urged to do something that would take them away from an utter reliance upon Christ, and Paul sent forth this admonition, not in soft terms that would pled, but in forcefulness to demand that they not turn from the liberty of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus find themselves entangled in the affairs of a world system that would imprison their spiritual development. He commanded them, and us, to stand fast, to be steadfast in the Lord. 
		So often, we are involved in trials and tribulations, and we tell ourselves that we have to do something. We can't just stand around and do nothing about this problem. There must be something that we can do, and there is. We are to stand fast in Christ. We are to hold onto Him with all our heart and soul and being in order not to let the affairs and the circumstances and the solutions and the counsel of this realm remove us from the Liberty taht is ours in Christ. Some have labelled this a spiritual warfare, and it is no less than that truth. To remain steadfast, to stand fast in the Lord while all the psycological refuse of thsi realm is flung at us from every angle and avenue; to remain utterly reliant upon the Lord while all around us the world is trying to undercut our foundational belief on Christ Jesus and His Soveriegn reign over creation; to determine in our hearts not to give one inch our of ground in Christ, while our very loved ones are attacking the basis of our Christian relationship, that is doing something, a tremendous thing, a powerful thing.
		Not that others will recognise the battle for what it is. They may and will critize us for what they see as nothing of value, but the Lord will recognize our efforts and our stand in Him. He will register our valiant fight to remain firmly rooted in Him and in Him alone. He will chronicle the valiant steadfastness of heart which refuses to give one iota of basis to anything of this realm.