As One Approved by God

“Remind them of these things, and charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness, and their talk will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have swerved from the truth, saying that the resurrection has already happened. They are upsetting the faith of some. But God's firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: ‘The Lord knows those who are his,’ and, ‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.’” (2 Timothy 2:14-19 ESV)

Paul was writing these words to Timothy, and he was encouraging him to share with others what Paul, via Christ Jesus, was teaching him:

• Fan into flame the gift of God within you

• Do not fear what others will say about you or do to you

• Do not be ashamed of the gospel of Christ

• Follow the pattern of sound words taught by Paul via Christ

• Be strengthened by the grace of God in faith

• Teach others what Christ is teaching you

• If we have died with him, we will live with him

• If we endure with him, we will reign with him

• If we deny him, he will deny us

• If we are faithless, he remains faithful to all he said he would do

So Timothy was to remind the Christians of these things, and he was to charge them before God not to quarrel about words, which does no good, but only ruins the hearers. And this is not to say that we should not contend for the truth of the gospel, or that we should not defend the honor of God and of his word, or that we should not answer the lies with the truth. But we are not to get into arguments over words which go nowhere and which produce nothing good. But we should speak the truth in love to people.

And now we are all at different places in our lives. Some of us became believers in Christ as children and we are now in our 70s. Some of us have taught the Scriptures for many years, and some of us full-time, and so we may be more familiar with the teachings of the Scriptures than others who have known the Lord a shorter period of time and who have not taught the Scriptures for a very long time. But some people who have taught the Scriptures a long time are not living the Scriptures that they teach others.

So length of time of being a Christian, or length of time and experience in teaching the Scriptures may or may not be relevant to our spiritual walks of faith in obedience to our Lord and to his commands. What is important is that our lives are surrendered to Jesus Christ and that we are following him in his ways and in his truth one day and one step at a time, in a forward direction, and not backwards. And it is important that we are open to hearing from the Lord what he wants to teach us each day from his word.

But this is where a caution comes in. So many people today are teaching the Scriptures out of context, and they are thus willfully (in many cases) twisting them to their own advantage to make them say what they do not teach if taught in the correct biblical context. So if we are going to be workers of God who rightly handle the word of truth, we need to be diligent about reading the Scriptures in their appropriate context, and really in the context of the New Testament, as a whole, to get the right understanding of them.

And we need to be open to being taught by the Holy Spirit with regard to what the Scriptures actually teach, even if the Scriptures disagree with what we were always taught from our childhood on up, or ever since we professed faith in Jesus Christ. For sometimes we are taught these wrongly by others who did not do diligence in studying the Scriptures in their context, but who interpreted them in light of some theology that they were taught by other humans. So do your best to study the Scriptures in context, by the Spirit.

And we are to avoid “irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness.” And there is a lot of this “irreverent babble” being passed off today as truth which is not truth, and many are falling prey to this babble because they are not testing what they hear against the teachings of the Scriptures in context. For if it sounds good to them, they accept it. And so many are not even interested in testing what they hear against the teachings of the Scriptures, for they like what feels good even if it isn’t good.

And a lot of this “irreverent babble” is spreading like gangrene here in America, anyway, and so many people are being duped by master liars and manipulators and deceivers who know how to charm the people into believing their lies and into following after the lies and not the truth. So we must be people of discernment who are testing what we hear from others, no matter who they are, to make certain that what they are teaching agrees with what the Scriptures teach in their appropriate context.

And so many people are swerving from the truth and they are following after the lies which feel good to their itching ears. And this is because they are not being discerning but they are, again, going after what makes them feel good, not after what is good and what is good for them. And so many people are professing faith in Jesus Christ and being promised heaven as their eternal destiny who have never died with Christ to sin, and so they have not been raised with him to walk in obedience to him in holy living.

And so we have many false professers of faith in Jesus Christ who are convinced that heaven is guaranteed them when they die who do not honor Christ with their lives but who are still living for the flesh. But the Lord knows who are his, and he said they are those who forsake their sins to follow him in walks of obedience to his commands, in practice. And so if we profess faith in Jesus, but we are still walking in sin, and not in obedience to our Lord’s commands, then we do not have the hope of eternity with God.

[Matt 7:21-23; Lu 9:23-26; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Titus 2:11-14; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,24-25; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Peter 1:15; 1 Pet 2:24; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; Rev 21:8,27; Rev 22:14-15]

My Heart’s Desire  

An Original Work / June 29, 2013

Based off Romans 10:1-21; Luke 9:23-26; Ephesians 4:17-24

Loved Ones, Oh, my heart’s desire

Is that you might come to Jesus.

Many appear zealous for God,

But they do not trust in Him.

They have not submitted to the One

Who saved them from their sins;

Not forsaken their sins,

Nor have they obeyed their King.

The word of the Lord is near you:

The word of faith we’re proclaiming:

That you must confess your faith

In Jesus as your Lord and King:

Believe in Him as your Lord, 

And follow Him where’er He leads.

Share the gospel; be a witness,

And meet others’ needs.

Beautiful are the feet of those

Who bring the good news of Jesus:

Anyone who would come to Him

Must deny himself today;

Die to sin and self, and

Let the Spirit transform you in heart;

Put on your new self in Jesus,

Yielding to the cross. 

https://vimeo.com/115643303