"Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses."
- 1 Timothy 6:12 KJV
At Zion Rest Church, where I attend and preach alongside Elder Charles H. Kitchens, and Bro. Derrick Kitchens, I have been going through the book of 1 Timothy. Subsequently we finished this series last Sunday afternoon. The whole book, to me, is very important for the Church today given the prevailing attitude of "Laodicean Contentment" I've noticed among a majority of churches.
In the beginning of chapter 6 Paul will tell Timothy "Godliness with Contentment is great gain." Obviously the two characteristics there should not be separated: godliness WITH contentment. When we start separating godliness FROM contentment then we end up in a state much like the church at Laodicea which was very content in their present state, but lack a key aspect of godliness that's inherent in the true Church: Love of Jesus Christ.
The entire book of Timothy from the first chapter to the last is stressing the importance of the Church to not become content in the bad way. In the first chapters Paul tells Timothy the church is to be focused on the essentials of Discipleship which is "...charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned..." (1 Timothy 1:6 KJV). He then goes on in chapter 2 to stress the need to pray for "all men". All men believed here to be all the different KINDS of men, as he addresses 2 in particular ("...kings and all that are in authority..") with the goal in mind for all these kinds of men to be "saved, and come to a knowledge of the truth." Paul echoes this same idea in Romans 10 for all of his Jewish brethren that are children of God to be "saved" because they have a "zeal of God but not according to knowledge".
At the end of the book Paul wraps up the commandment to Timothy with the above stated verse: "fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life..." This encouragement is here to remind us that whereas we set out to keep charity out of a pure heart, faith unfeigned, being instant in prayer for others, it gets difficult, and we get lazy. Therefore Paul tells Timothy, and us, fight...and then fight some more. Keep up the battle. Never faint. Lay hold on that eternal life that we profess to believe in, and live a life in this world that sheds light on that "life and immortality" that we have through Jesus Christ alone.
Here then in 1 Timothy Paul gives us 3 main bullet points for the Disciple of Christ to latch onto for continued growth, and continued "light-shedding" here in this world.
- 3 attributes every Disciple of Christ must hold to: charity out of a pure heart, good conscience, and faith unfeigned
- Prayers, supplications, intercessions, and giving of thanks MUST be made for all men - even those in authority over us (i.e. Barack Obama) because God has a people among "all men" and it should be our desire for them to be operating "according to knowledge of the truth"
- Fight...and fight some more
No comments:
Post a Comment