PT-2“The Present: The Close, For Which He is Ready” (2 Timothy 4:6)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/21/2025 10:14 AM

My Worship Time                       Focus:  PT-2“The Present: The Close, For Which He is Ready”

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference: 2 Timothy 4:6

            Message of the verse:  For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.”

            As one looks at the history of the Apostle Paul they will learn that he had always been ready to make the ultimate sacrifice, but now the possibility was about to become reality for he writes “the time of my departure has come.”  MacArthur explains “As in verse 3, kairos does not here refer to chronological but epochal time.”   Here is what I found out about epochal time:  “Essentially, epoch time is a way to represent a specific point in time as a single, large integer value, making it efficient for computers to store and manipulate time data.”  This comes from AI.          Ok I move on to say that “Paul was speaking of the final period of his life and ministry, not the final hours or days” writes MacArthur, and now I think that I understand this sentence much better.  Paul was concerned about his cloak and wanted Timothy to bring it to him, and I always wondered if he ever got it, but perhaps now I think that he did get it from Timothy.  So Paul obviously expected to live a few more months before his departure, and that was because he also asked Timothy to bring his parchments to him. He also wanted Timothy to get there before winter.  Ok at this point I want to write about something that I have been thinking about and it comes from Psalm 139:16, a Psalm of David.  “16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.”  Now the question is that I have asked to people that I trust to know the Scriptures, is this verse only for David, or for everyone who has ever lived on planet earth?  I have mentioned that my wife now had cancer and after her operation on the last day of April this year we believe that the doctor removed all of the cancer in her body, which certainly deserved a “Praise the Lord.”  Now there is no doubt in my mind that the Lord does know when people will be born and when they will die for God knows everything.  Why does this matter to us at this time?  Well we together have made the decision not to have her go under chemo therapy, and the reasons are obvious as that kind of treatment makes a person very sick, and one of the symptoms says that it can give a person cancer.  We believe that God is in charge of her life, the day she was born and the day she will go to be with the Lord whether through death of alive when the rapture happens, and that God is in control of that.  Paul knew that his time was running out as he penned this letter to Timothy, as we have learned he did not know the exact day or time when he would be martyred for the sake of Christ, but he knew it was close and I have to believe that he knew that God knew the exact time when this would happen.  It is my desire to never put God in a box, that is never put certain expectations on Him for He knows everything and will do things that He desires to do in order to bring glory to His name.  The more we get to know God the better we understand He is totally in control, and the way that we get to know Him is to study His Word and also to study His attributes which are found in His Word.  The more we get to know Him, the more we will trust Him and the more we will love Him, and you can see this in Paul’s writing near the end of His life, and I believe this may be the last letter Paul wrote, for sure it is the last letter that he wrote that was put in the Bible.

            What I am saying about the situation with my wife is that I certainly need people to pray for her health, to pray that she will handle this situation that she is in, and I am in with her.  Just because I believe that Psalm 139:16b tells me that God knows the day of our departure does mean not to pray about it, for prayer for this situation keeps us closer to God, as that is our prayer that her situation will cause us to grow in the Lord and also will bring glory to the Lord.

            Well once again I kind of got off track and will continue looking at this very important section of Scripture that the Holy Spirit of God has caused me to study this book at the right time in my life and in my wife’s life, and for that I am truly thankful to the Lord.  Lord willing I will pick up where I am leaving off today in tomorrow’s SD.

            Spiritual Meaning for My Life Today:  I am thankful for the Lord leading me to study this wonderful book of the Bible in the perfect time when I needed to study it.

            My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to trust the Lord that He will give me the grace to handle whatever is before me, and to learn from this situation we are in and to praise the Lord that He has given us a chance to grow in our faith at this time and through these troubles we are in.

7/22/2025 10:52 AM