Servants don't quarrel

"A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but must be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people. Gently instruct those who oppose the truth. Perhaps God will change those people's hearts, and they will learn the truth." 2 Timothy 2:24-25 NLT


I love this verse because it flies in the face of my fleshly nature (most verses do)! I seem to have a tendency to want to argue the truth with people because I am passionate about it. So I learn, that while my motives are good, my methods are often times very bad! Christians, we are called to not misrepresent Christ to this world. You know, the world is used to fights and people getting mad at them because they disagree with them. We have a great opportunity to use a disagreement for Christ's sake. When you are talking with one who opposes the truth (as this verse says) treat them gently and do not quarrel. Why? Because it might change their hearts towards God.

We represent Christ everywhere we go and sadly many Christians have misrepresented Christ to the world. For example, driving down the road when someone cuts a Christian off, they honk and cuss and sometimes more, only to later drive by that car and have a Jesus fish on the back of the car with a couple of Christian bumper stickers of how Jesus loves you! You see how this is such an awful representation of Christ's love? Christians when presented with an opportunity to get really angry with people who oppose the truth, train yourselves to be gentle with them and you might just win a soul for Christ!

God bless and have a great thanksgiving!!

Flee youthful lust

"Flee youthful lust..." 2 Timothy 2:22

This verse is pretty straight forward, but sadly is often times ignored by some in the Church. When Paul says to flee youthful lusts, he is simply saying to run away from any lusts that you have. What does this look like? If you are tempted in an area, FLEE! For example if one was an alcoholic and he said I'm not going to drink but I'm going to hang out at the bar. Well, that is just stupid, why? Because we all know that eventually he would get drunk! It applies to any sin. Whatever area you struggle in, run away from it, don't leave the door open for sin.

Two characters in the Old Testament give us good pictures of what we should do when we are tempted. The first one is obviously Joseph. It is obviously him because when he was tempted he did flee, literally! When Potiphar's wife (or as Pastor Robert Furrow say's "Mrs. Potty") asked Joseph to lie with her, she grabbed his cloak and he ran and left his cloak and all! Another Old Testament character was Nehemiah, who was responsible for building the walls of Jerusalem. Just as he built walls to protect the city, we must build walls to protect our integrity! If you are struggling with a sin, build walls to make it more difficult for you to give in to temptation. Using our earlier example, if one was an alcoholic, then a wall to build would be to restrict himself from going to bars. Have people help you be accountable, flee from sin and build walls to protect you!