Tuesday, December 10, 2024

PT-1 "Accept Your Suffering" (2 Tim. 1:8a)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/10/2024 8:28 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                               Focus:  PT-1 “Accept Your Suffering”

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                   Reference:  2 Timothy 1:8a

 

            Message of the verses:  “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering for the gospel”

 

            Today we begin a new section from the letter that Paul wrote to Timothy, and I certainly am interested in looking at this section just because of what is in this part of verse eight and also because of the title that MacArthur gives to this section.

 

            We begin this SD by stating that we are looking at a third means for guarding against being ashamed of Christ, which is accepting the consequences of being faithful, and I know that this may sound a bit strange, but nevertheless it is true.  Consequently, Paul advised Timothy to prepare himself for misunderstanding, animosity, and rejection.  As I was listening to the sermon from John MacArthur that goes along with this section he mentioned that when he first became the Pastor of the church where he has been serving for over fifty years that he mentioned to his father, who was also a Pastor that he had not had to go through suffering since he began that ministry.  His father told him to be patient that it would come, and it did come as he mentioned different times that suffering had happened to him.  I am not saying physical suffering, but suffering in other ways for the cause of Christ like different difficulties that came through lawsuits and things like that. 

 

            I also remember a story in a book written by David Jeremiah who was suffering with some kind of health issue where he had to have a bone marrow transfer which brought to him a great deal of pain.  He mentioned that a friend came into visit him while at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and read to him a portion of Scripture from 2nd Corinthians 11:22-33 “22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? — I speak as if insane — I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. 24 Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. 26 I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; 27  I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. 28 Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern? 30  If I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, He who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. 32 In Damascus the ethnarch under Aretas the king was guarding the city of the Damascenes in order to seize me, 33  and I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and so escaped his hands.  In this section Paul was defending his Apostleship as some of the Corinthians did not believe that he was an Apostle of Christ, and so he wrote about all the suffering that he went through for the cause of Christ, suffering that if he were not a true follower of Christ would not have happened to him. 

 

            John MacArthur writes “Therefore refers to the divinely bestowed gift and resources Paul has just mentioned in the two previous verses.  ‘In light of those immeasurable blessings,’ the apostle was saying, ‘you have no reason to be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner.  Do not be afraid to name the name of Christ or to be known as my friend and fellow minister.’”

 

            Paul probably wrote this letter to Timothy sometime around 66 A.D. and that was a time of great troubles for true believers in Jesus Christ.  If my memory serves me correct there was a madman named Nero who set the city of Rome on fire and then blamed the Christians for doing it and so Christians were under great persecution because of that and that is the time when Paul was again arrested, and the time when he would be executed for the cause of Christ.  It was at this time that Paul wrote to his son in the Lord Timothy who was having times of being timid for the cause of Christ and Paul wants to make sure that this will not last as he was the one the Paul chose to continue in his ministry so this letter is to help Timothy to be a good soldier for Jesus Christ. 

 

            During this time as mentioned to be associated with the Lord, ore with Paul, His prisoner, could be costly in the extreme.  It is interesting and significant that the apostle did not consider himself primarily to be a prisoner of Rome but he considered himself to be a prisoner of Jesus Christ who had sovereign control of his life.  From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand-marks of Jesus” (Gal. 6:17).  This verse from Galatians goes along with the verses from 2 Corinthians 11 that are seen above.

 

            Spiritual meaning for My Life Today:  I have been thinking this morning about a verse from the end of the 7th chapter of the book of Romans, a chapter where Paul has much to say about some things that in my opinion were troubling to his mind and actions.  At the end of that chapter he writes of a dilemma which he will go on to continue to write about in chapter eight, but chapter eight gives the answer to his dilemma.  24 Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.1Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” 

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I desire to go from being wretched at times to remember that there is now no condemnation for me because I am in Christ Jesus.

 

12/10/2024 9:22 AM

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