Welcome back to Tabernacle Tidbits. Today, we are in 2 Timothy, Chapter 2 and Verse No.
7. The Apostle Paul is, if you will, writing his last will and testament to his protege in the faith, Timothy. And he wants to encourage him to keep on going for the Lord, to keep on faithfully pursuing in everything that God has for Timothy.
He doesn't want him to get discouraged or ashamed of Jesus and the shame that came with being a Christian, with following someone that had been crucified on a cross, a very shameful death.
He didn't want Timothy to be ashamed of himself as he was a prisoner in Rome. He instead wanted him to continue faithfully on.
And so he encouraged him with kind of three illustrations in the preceding verses where he says, I want you to be a soldier that listens to your commanding officer and doesn't get derailed by civilian affairs.
I want you to pay attention to what Jesus has for you, not what other people have for you. He tells him, I want you to compete like an athlete, playing according to the rules of the game, that I want you to follow what the Lord has said.
I want you to follow the scriptures. I want you to follow the way of Jesus. I don't want you to take shortcuts in your life.
I don't want you to just do, if you will, what makes you happy. Instead, I want you to do what the Lord has said. And then lastly, he says, the hardworking farmer ought to be the first to get a share of the crops.
He says there is a reward that is waiting for you. If you listen to Jesus, you don't get derailed by anything. If you will, play by the rules of God's game.
You do right by what the Lord has set out. There are incredible riches and rewards that are waiting for you, not just in like this life and the gold or whatever that people could have here.
He says, but a well done from the Lord, the incredible blessings that Paul would write about in many other places, that crown of life that we would hear about. So many other things.
Paul would tell us in 1 Corinthians, I hasn't seen, ear hasn't heard what God's prepared for those who love him.
So on the heels of that, then he tells Timothy this in verse 7, consider what I say for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Consider what I say for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.
This word, consider that he has first is to grasp or to comprehend something.
He says, I want you to make a concerted effort to understand what I'm telling you, to think through these like illustrations, to think about what it means to follow Jesus, even in the midst of hardship like what I'm going through.
He says, I want you to grasp what I'm telling you. And he says, because the Lord will give you understanding in everything.
You see, there is a wonderful marriage in our life between our effort to know, love, understand and obey God and God's sovereign working on our part, that God invites us into a partnership with him.
And if you will, he's doing all of the heavy lifting and truly, all he asks for us is that our heart posture, the way in which we allow our minds to think would be bent towards God, that we would trust in the Lord with all our heart and not lean on
our own understanding and all of our ways acknowledge him and he directs our paths, that as we humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, he lifts us up. And so for you today, I know that there are so many big picture things in the Bible.
You probably have a thousand thoughts that are racing through your mind right now.
But I want to encourage you, if you will intentionally think about God, think about the way in which God wants you to treat other people today, he will help you to do what is right. Will you do it perfectly? No, we're not perfect.
Only God is perfect. But as we turn our hearts, turn our attention, turn our motives towards the Lord to say, God, I want to treat people how you would treat people today. I want to interact with my spouse in the way that you want me to.
I want to share Jesus because that's what you want for me.
As we focus on what God wants for our life and not what we want for our own, then we can know that God will help us, that we have this wonderful promise, that when we consider, when we want to grasp what God has for us, He will give us understanding
in everything. He will help us day by day. Love that old song, day by day and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my trials here. Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment, I have no cause for worry or for fear.
He whose heart is kind beyond all measure, gives to each day what he deems best, lovingly, it's part of pain and pleasure, mingling toil with peace and rest. Will we turn our attention today to God? Thanks for tuning in.
See you in verse number eight tomorrow.
