Thanks for joining us for another daily encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

I'm Tom Felton, and I titled our reading, Standing Firm by Faith.

Nokia became the world's best-selling mobile phone company in 1998

and saw profits rise to nearly

$4 billion in 1999. But by 2011, sales were diminishing, and soon the failing phone

brand was acquired by Microsoft. One factor in Nokia's mobile division failure was a fear-based

work culture that led to disastrous decisions.

Managers were reluctant to tell the truth about the Nokia phones' inferior operating system

and other design problems for fear of being fired.

In the book of Isaiah, King Ahaz of Judah and his people were fearful, shaken as the trees of the forest

are shaken by the wind. They knew that the kings of Israel and Aram, or Syria, had allied,

and their combined armies were marching to Judah to take it over. Although God used Isaiah

to encourage Ahaz by telling him his enemy's hostile plans would not happen,

the foolish leader fearfully chose to ally with Assyria and submit to the superpowers king.

He didn't trust in God, who declared,

If you do not stand firm in your faith, you will not stand at all.

The writer of Hebrews helps us consider what it looks like to stand firm in faith today.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

May we press on and not shrink back as the Holy Spirit empowers us to trust in Jesus.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Isaiah chapter 7, verses 1 to 9.

When Ahas, son of Jatham, the son of Uzziah, was king of Judah,

King Rezum of Aram, and Pika, son of Ramalia, King of Israel,

...