SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/2/2025 9:17 AM
My Worship Time
Focus: PT-1
“The Command to be Strong”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
2 Timothy 2:1
Message of the
verse: “1 You
therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
I have written about what Paul is alluding to in
this first verse and it was also seen in the introduction to the verses in this
paragraph, and that is that Timothy was facing a time of spiritual indecisiveness
and weakness. I have also mentioned that
I understand this as I truly believe that the Lord desires me to study this
letter that Paul wrote to Timothy because I face similar situations that
Timothy was facing, and so what better way to overcome these problems than to
listen to what Pau wrote to Timothy by the inspiritation of the Holy Spirit.
MacArthur speculates “He (Timothy)
may have been questioning his calling or his gifts or the sufficiency of God’s
provision. He was mired in difficulties
of some sort and could not extricate himself.
Whatever the particulars, Paul realized that his son in the faith needed
‘to kindle afresh the gift of God which’ was in him 2 Tim. 1:6). As we noted in the last chapter, he did not
need more from God but needed to use, with commitment and confidence, te divine
provisions he already possessed. He
needed to remember and to exercise the ‘power and loved and discipline’ (v. 7) that
the Holy Spirit had provided him and provides every believer. He needed to discard his being ashamed of ‘the
testimony of the Lord’ and to be willing to join Paul in ‘suffering for the
gospel according to the power of God’ (v-8).
He needed, like the apostle, to be ‘convinced that He is able to guard
what I have entrusted to Him until that day’ (v. 12), to ‘retain the standard
of sound words which [he had] heard from [Paul], in faith and love which are in
Christ Jesus’ (v. 13), to avoid faithless church members such as Phygelus and Hermogenes,
and to identify with faithful believers such as Onesiphorus and those in his
household (vv. 15-16).”
That seems like a pretty big list of
things that Timothy need to work on. The
Christian life certainly can have its ups and downs and there are times, like
in the life of Timothy that there are times when he is convicted from the Word
of God, which was what Paul was writing under the inspiritation of the Holy
Spirit, in order to get your spiritual toes stepped on and follow what the
Bible is teaching you. A believer that
is going through difficulties in their walk with the Lord and after reading the
Word of God which convicts them of the issues that they are happening to them
they are to be thankful that God loves them so much that He confronts them so
that their walk with Him will be better for the cause of Christ.
In our verse for today we see that
Paul was summing up the counsel that he is giving to Timothy: “You therefore,
my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Now as we look at the words be strong
MacArthur writes that it “is an imperative, making it a command.” He goes on “Yet it is a command tempered by Paul’s
deep love for Timothy, his son. There is
tenderness in Paul’s heart because there is tenderness in God’s heart. Even the Lord’s strongest commands are given
in love.” God does admonish His children
firmly but lovingly.
I will pick up on this subject in my
next SD, Lord willing.
Spiritual meaning for my life today:
To heed what Paul was writing to Timothy as if he was writing it to
me.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
To trust the Lord to give me the grace that I need to overcome some of
these issues that Paul is identifying with Timothy.
1/2/2025 9:45
AM
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