“Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me for ministry. Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him yourself, for he strongly opposed our message.
“At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them! But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.” (2 Timothy 4:9-18 ESV)
When we make that decision in our lives to put our trust and hope in Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of our lives, to surrender our lives to him, to be his possession, for his purposes and for his glory, to die with him to sin, and to now live for him in walks of obedience to his commands, and no longer in sin, we choose to deny self, to die to the self-life, and to be willing to be hated, persecuted, and even killed for our walks of faith in our Lord. For that is what it means to believe in him and to become one of his followers.
For faith in Jesus Christ is not lip service only, and not only for the purpose that our sins might be forgiven so that when we die we get to go to heaven. Faith in Jesus Christ means death to our old lives, to our old ways of living for self and according to the flesh, so that we will now live for the Lord in walks of holiness and in righteousness and in obedience to his commands. It means we no longer are boss of our own lives, but God is boss, and he is now the one to be directing our paths, and showing us the way to go.
But the gospel message today has been so diluted and altered that it barely resembles what the Scriptures teach regarding what our faith in Jesus Christ should look like. So many have reduced faith in the Lord to a bare acknowledgment of who he was/is and of what they have come to believe was the purpose for him dying on that cross. And then they are promised forgiveness of all sins, and heaven as their eternal destiny, but regardless of how they live their lives from that moment forward.
Nonetheless, that is not the message of the gospel that Jesus taught. It is not the gospel message that the apostle Paul taught. And Jesus was hated and persecuted and put to death for what he taught and for what he did, and the apostle Paul was hated and persecuted and falsely imprisoned, and I believe he later died for his faith in Jesus Christ. For when our faith in God, in Jesus Christ, is genuine, we will be hated, persecuted, and abandoned. And some who are in love with this present world will desert us, surely.
For if we are walking in the ways of the Lord, and not in the ways of the world, those who are in love with the ways of the world are not going to be comfortable with us who are not, but who are in love with Christ and with his word and with wanting to do what pleases our Lord, even if it means getting hated and persecuted and deserted and abandoned, in return. But this doesn’t mean that we don’t feel hurt. We still bleed. We are not unaffected by how others treat us because of the seriousness of our faith in Christ.
And so there may be times when we need to share with the body of Christ what we are going through, and how we are being treated by others, not for the purpose to vent nor to gossip, but because we need prayer, and we need encouragement, and we need the support of the body of Christ, for that is how God made us, to need each other, and to pray for one another, and to bear one another’s burdens. For if we say nothing, how will they know what we need and how to pray for us? Sometimes we just need to cry, “Help!”
And sometimes we have to name names, again never for the purpose to vent nor to gossip, but only if necessary in order to warn others of the dangers of some people who are misleading others in the wrong direction. But make certain you are on solid biblical ground first. For in our day and time we have many people who are people of influence who are liars and deceivers, and who are addicted to sinful practices, and who are a danger to the body of Christ, for they are not walking in the ways of the Lord.
But we are to forgive our persecutors and those who tell lies against us. And the Scriptures teach that we are to love our enemies, and pray for them, and do good to them, and to say and do for them what is for their good, as God defines good. So we are never to get revenge, for that is God’s job, not ours. But we may have to warn others of certain people who are spreading lies and who are leading God’s people to false gospel messages, and so that they are not led astray, and so that they remain faithful to the Lord.
And no matter what happens to us or how others treat us, we are to remain steadfast in our walks of faith in the Lord Jesus, and he will give us the strength to endure and to remain faithful and to keep on walking in fellowship with him, and to keep on spreading the true message of the gospel. For if we are on the Lord’s side, doing his will, he is on our side, and he will help us through every trial. The Lord will allow us to go through these trials, though, and to suffer, but he will bring us safely into his heavenly kingdom as long as we remain in him and his words remain in us.
[Matt 5:10-12; Matt 10:16-25; Matt 24:9-14; Luke 6:22-23; Luke 12:49-53; Luke 21:12-19; John 15:1-21; John 16:33; John 17:14; Acts 14:22; Rom 5:3-5; Eph 6:10-20; Phil 3:7-11; 1 Pet 1:6-7; 1 Pet 4:12-17; 2 Tim 3:12; 1 Thess 3:1-5; Jas 1:2-4; 2 Co 1:3-11; Heb 12:3-12; 1 Jn 3:13; Rev 6:9-11; Rev 7:9-17; Rev 11:1-3; Rev 12:17; Rev 13:1-18; Rev 14:1-13]
As the Deer
By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1
As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You
You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZv3jzOTE70
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