September 16

"Hold fast that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown." Revelation 3:11

In most of the seven churches of Asia it is not difficult to discern what it was that the overcomers needed to conquer. In Philadelphia, however, everything seemed to be acceptable to the Lord. We might feel that this was a church after his own heart, a pattern church, with no reason for a special call to its members to be overcomers. Yet the call was made there too, just as in the other six.

The one hint of warning given by the Lord Jesus was that the Philadelphians should hold fast to their spiritual position. This, then, was the sphere in which they must fight and overcome. Their peril was not so much that of doing what was wrong as of failing to keep on steadily in the pathway of God’s will. We all need this same urge from the Lord Jesus, to keep it up right to the moment of his Return.