December 5, 2010 (I Timothy 1-6)

Paul's instructions to Timothy have a lot of wisdom in them:

1:19 "Cling tightly to your faith in Christ, and always keep your conscience clear. For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked."

There was a time when I was deliberately violating my conscience - and it absolutely killed my walk with Christ. I had no assurance of His love, no assurance of His answers to prayer, and was continually 'at war' in my soul. I truly felt like a 'shipwrecked' soul. That is no way to live and I'm grateful for His love that led me out of that period.

The spiritual life is one of training. Paul tells us "Spend your time and energy in training yourself for spiritual fitness." and then he acknowledges that physical training has some value but spiritual exercise is much more important, for it promises a reward in both this life and the life to come. A few verses later we see the importance of taking our spiritual life seriously:

4:15-16 Give your complete attention to these matters. Throw yourself into your tasks so that everyone will see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and your teaching. Stay true to what is right, and God will save you and those who hear you.

Can everyone see my spiritual progress? I would dare say "no".

And now for the "love of money" section and Paul's teaching about wealth:

^6:6 Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. ⁷ After all, we brought nothing with us when we came into the world, and we can’t take anything with us when we leave it. ⁸ So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content.

⁹ But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰ For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.

¹¹ But you, Timothy, are a man of God; so run from all these evil things. Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness. ¹² Fight the good fight for the true faith. Hold tightly to the eternal life to which God has called you, which you have confessed so well before many witnesses. ¹³ And I charge you before God, who gives life to all, and before Christ Jesus, who gave a good testimony before Pontius Pilate, ¹⁴ that you obey this command without wavering. Then no one can find fault with you from now until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again. ¹⁵For at just the right time Christ will be revealed from heaven by the blessed and only almighty God, the King of all kings and Lord of all lords. ¹⁶ He alone can never die, and he lives in light so brilliant that no human can approach him. No human eye has ever seen him, nor ever will. All honor and power to him forever! Amen.

¹⁷ Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment. ¹⁸ Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. ¹⁹ By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life.

²⁰ Timothy, guard what God has entrusted to you. Avoid godless, foolish discussions with those who oppose you with their so-called knowledge. ²¹ Some people have wandered from the faith by following such foolishness.

May God’s grace be with you all.

December 4, 2010 (Philippians 1-4)

There is so much in these epistles of Paul. Chapter 1 contains the encouraging verse that God will never give up on us, but will continue to work in us until Christ returns:

⁶And I am sure that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on that day when Christ Jesus comes back again.

And then, another one of Pauls' prayers -

⁹ I pray that your love for each other will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in your knowledge and understanding. ¹⁰ For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ’s return. ¹¹ May you always be filled with the fruit of your salvation—the righteous character produced in your life by Jesus Christ—for this will bring much glory and praise to God.

What really matters in this life? That our love for each other will overflow more and more and that we will grow in our knowledge and understanding. We can't take credit for any of the good things produced in our life - Jesus is the One who does them - and this brings glory to God.

This next verse is another reminder that our focus should not be down here on earth:

²⁷ Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News.

Now to Chapter two - and this verse is always convicting. I am really going to try to put this verse into practice today. I'm going to focus on it, and not forget about it. I feel like that is what I do so often....I read God's word, am convicted by it, and then just go on my merry way without really implementing the things I just read. How's verse 14 for 'impossible' -

¹⁴ In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing, ¹⁵ so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. ¹⁶ Hold firmly to the word of life;

Chapter 3 contains a string of verses I have posted to my mirror. The trouble is, they are posted there, but do I read them every day? No, not in the past. But today I am renewing my commitment to read this section every day. I just timed myself - one minute. One minute to get my focus on Christ and be reminded that everything else is worthless when compared with knowing Him.

⁷ I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. ⁸ Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I may have Christ ⁹ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own goodness or my ability to obey God's law, but I trust Christ to save me. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. ¹⁰As a result, I can really know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I can learn what it means to suffer with him, sharing in his death, ¹¹so that, somehow, I can experience the resurrection from the dead!

¹² I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be. ¹³ No, dear brothers and sisters, I am still not all I should be, but I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven.

¹⁵ I hope all of you who are mature Christians will agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. ¹⁶ But we must be sure to obey the truth we have learned already.

Chapter 4 has another section that needs to be on my mirror that I should read every day. I will print this out later today and tape it up there.

⁴ Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! ⁵ Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.

⁶ Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. ⁷ If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

And then to end, this ties into not complaining and arguing. If we can control our thoughts, we will control our actions:

⁸ And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. ⁹ Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and heard from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you.

Jesus, may Your grace and Your Spirit enable us to put all these things into practice. Please continue to rid us of ourselves and allow us to live in You.

December 1, 2010 (Ephesians 1-6)

Ephesians - another book like Colossians - rich in truth.

Again, we hear of God's secret plan - a plan centered on Christ. What is God's purpose?

¹² God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. ¹³ And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. ¹⁴ The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

And now, for the prayer verses. How would our lives change if we prayed this for one another? How convicting is verse 16? - "I have never stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly." And now for the complete verses on the prayers we should be praying for one another.

1:16 I pray for you constantly, ¹⁷ asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. ¹⁸ I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the wonderful future he has promised to those he called. I want you to realize what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people.

¹⁹ I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power ²⁰ that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. ²¹ Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else—not only in this world but also in the world to come.

^3:12 Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence. ¹³ So please don’t lose heart because of my trials here. I am suffering for you, so you should feel honored.

¹⁴ When I think of the wisdom and scope of God's plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, ¹⁵ the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. ¹⁶ I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. ¹⁷ And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots will grow down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. ¹⁸ And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. ¹⁹ May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

²⁰ Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. ²¹ May he be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages. Amen.

November 30, 2010 (Colossians)

Jesus is everything to us - or at least He should be.

"For God, in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and by him God reconciled everything to himself. He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth by means of his blood on the cross. This includes you, who were once so far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions, yet now he has brought you back as his friends. He has done this through his death on the cross in his own human body. As a result, he has brought you into the very presence of God, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault. But you must continue to believe this truth and stand in it firmly."

What an amazing amount of truth in such a little segment. God lived in Christ. Think about that - really think about that statement. The truth of the gospel is contained in that. That is why the death of Christ was so crucial - because God punished Himself - He died to sin so that we could live through Christ. Through Christ, God reconciled everything to Himself. I used to be God's enemy, but now I am His friend. I am holy and blameless without a single fault. He has brought me into His very presence. All of that is proclaimed as truth and as being so. The last line of that paragraph is key - But you must continue to believe this truth and stand in it firmly.

"For this is the secret: Christ lives in you, and this is your assurance that you will share in his glory."

"And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to live in obedience to him. Let your roots grow down into him and draw up mourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done."

And then, the first part of Chapter 3 - again, so rich in truth and in how we are supposed to act:

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. ² Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. ³ For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ And when Christ, who is your real life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.

⁵ So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual sin, impurity, lust, and shameful desires. Don’t be greedy for the good things of this life, for that is idolatry. ⁶ Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. ⁷ You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. ⁸ But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. ⁹ Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. ¹⁰ In its place you have clothed yourselves with a brand-new nature that is continually being renewed as you learn more and more about Christ, who created this new nature within you. ¹¹ In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.

¹² Since God chose you to be the holy people whom he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. ¹³ Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. ¹⁴ Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. ¹⁵ And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful.

¹⁶ Let the words of Christ, in all their richness, live in your hearts and make you wise. Use his words to teach and counsel each other. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. ¹⁷ And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

November 28, 2010 (Acts 20-28)

I haven't been very faithful about blogging. So pretty much all of Romans is unrecorded. I guess I just start again today. Pretty much this short blog will be based on Chapter 20:

²⁴ But my life is worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus—the work of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.

Do I feel that way? Is my life worth nothing to me unless I use it for finishing the work assigned to me? Is the problem that I'm not sure what my assignment is? I guess all of us have the assignment of telling others the Good News about the wonderful grace of God.

Paul had a profound dependance upon God as evidenced by this next verse:

³² “And now I entrust you to God and the message of his grace that is able to build you up and give you an inheritance with all those he has set apart for himself.

That's pretty much all that any of us can do with the events/people in our lives - entrust them to God and the message of His grace. God help us to do just that.

November 21, 2010 (Romans 1-2)

Paul makes the gospel message pretty clear as he starts off the book of Romans. Jesus was born as a man, but was shown to be the Son of God when God raised Him from the dead. Simple message, really:

^1:3 The Good News is about his Son, Jesus, who came as a man, born into King David’s royal family line. ⁴ And Jesus Christ our Lord was shown to be the Son of God when God powerfully raised him from the dead by means of the Holy Spirit. ⁵ Through Christ, God has given us the privilege and authority to tell Gentiles everywhere what God has done for them, so that they will believe and obey him, bringing glory to his name.

We are to tell - the Holy Spirit is to convict - and we (and they) are to believe and obey, thereby bringing glory to God's name.

Paul was a prayer warrior. I think that is why he was so greatly used of God. He showed his dependence upon God by his prayers to God. God, please help me to follow his example:

⁸ Let me say first that I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith in him is being talked about all over the world. ⁹ God knows how often I pray for you. Day and night I bring you and your needs in prayer to God, whom I serve with all my heart by spreading the Good News about his Son.

And it wasn't all about him. Yes, he wanted to see the others to encourage them, but he also wanted to be encouraged by their faith.

¹¹ For I long to visit you so I can bring you some spiritual gift that will help you grow strong in the Lord. ¹² When we get together, I want to encourage you in your faith, but I also want to be encouraged by yours.

Paul was not ashamed of his faith in Christ. He knew that was what would bring salvation. And he reiterates that from start to finish it is accomplished by faith.

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of this Good News about Christ. It is the power of God at work, saving everyone who believes—the Jew first and also the Gentile. ¹⁷ This Good News tells us how God makes us right in his sight. This is accomplished from start to finish by faith. As the Scriptures say, “It is through faith that a righteous person has life.”

Paul explains that God has put knowledge of Himself instinctively in people's hearts through creation. But we all have a choice, and some choose this:

²¹ Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. ²² Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. ²³ And instead of worshiping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshiped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles.

But even for those that are believers, that know Christ, we daily have a choice as to whether we will acknowledge God. When we don't, the following things can creep back into our lives as well:

²⁸ Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. ²⁹ Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. ³⁰ They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. ³¹ They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. ³² They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too.

And as we just read that list, do we say, "That's not me!?" Paul addresses that as well:

^2:1 You may think you can condemn such people, but you are just as bad, and you have no excuse! When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are condemning yourself, for you who judge others do these very same things. ² And we know that God, in his justice, will punish anyone who does such things. ³ Since you judge others for doing these things, why do you think you can avoid God’s judgment when you do the same things? ⁴ Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?

I have seen that over and over in my life. I point out some "sin" of someone else, and then find myself doing the very same thing. Maybe that's why Jesus tells us to get the log out of our own eye and then perhaps we can see the speck in our brother's.

We can't live 'dual lives' before God. He sees everything we do and knows every thought we think.

^2:16 And this is the message I proclaim—that the day is coming when God, through Christ Jesus, will judge everyone’s secret life.

I just keep thinking about the fact that we are to be 'the salt and light' of this world. How are we doing at that? Are we (am I) truly making a difference for Christ? Do I have the boldness of Paul, preaching the 'foolish' message of Jesus? Is my life lived in such a way that it cannot be explained, humanly speaking? Do I realize that I am 'a foreigner and pilgrim' here on earth, looking for 'a heavenly city'?

Jesus, I thank you for your patience with me. I thank you that through your Spirit you are changing me, but I acknowledge how short I fall. Continue to reveal Yourself to me through your word. Continue to 'change the way I think' through your word. Continue to show me I cannot do anything on my own, but it is Your Spirit that gives life and changes life. Make me a woman of prayer and dependence upon You.

November 19-20, 2010 (II Corinthians 1-13)

It is so easy to forgot our true mission - to be the hands and feet of Jesus. And we can only be His hands and feet as we allow Him to live through us. And we must never lose sight of the fact that we are in a spiritual battle, and that the enemy of our soul has blinded the minds of those that don't believe. But Jesus can remove that veil that he has put over their hearts:

^3:14 But the people’s minds were hardened, and to this day whenever the old covenant is being read, the same veil covers their minds so they cannot understand the truth. And this veil can be removed only by believing in Christ.

Paul continues to reiterate it's not about us, it's about Jesus:

^4:5 You see, we don’t go around preaching about ourselves. We preach that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we ourselves are your servants for Jesus’ sake.

And he reminds them and us about how weak we truly are in ourselves:

^4:7 But this precious treasure - this light and power that now shine within us - is held in perishable containers, that is, in our weak bodies. So everyone can see that our glorious power is from God and is not our own.

There is something about suffering that draws us even closer to Christ. We, as a whole, have no idea what it really means to be a Christian compared to Paul and the stand that he took to bring others to Christ:

^{4:8 We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. 9 We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. 10 Through suffering, our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies.}

¹¹ Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus, so that the life of Jesus will be evident in our dying bodies. ¹²So we live in the face of death, but this has resulted in eternal life for you.

¹³ But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.”¹⁴ We know that God, who raised the Lord Jesus, will also raise us with Jesus and present us to himself together with you. ¹⁵ All of this is for your benefit. And as God’s grace reaches more and more people, there will be great thanksgiving, and God will receive more and more glory.

¹⁶ That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. ¹⁷ For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! ¹⁸ So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.

Paul talks of how those that are in Christ have died to the old life and now live to please Christ. And all of us are 'ambassadors' - God has appointed us to represent Him to a lost and dying world:

^5:18 All this newness of life is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through what Christ did. And God has given us the task of reconciling people to him. ¹⁹ For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others. ²⁰ We are Christ’s ambassadors, and God is using us to speak to you. We his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” ²¹ For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.

And now for principles in giving:

9:6-8 Remember this—a farmer who plants only a few seeds will get a small crop. But the one who plants generously will get a generous crop. ⁷ You must each decide in your heart how much to give. And don’t give reluctantly or in response to pressure. “For God loves a person who gives cheerfully.” ⁸ And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will always have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others.

Paul's conclusion:

^13:11 Dear brothers and sisters, I close my letter with these last words: Be joyful. Grow to maturity. Encourage each other. Live in harmony and peace. Then the God of love and peace will be with you.

Good words for us all.