MESSAGE: JANUARY 3, 2015: “OUR CHARGE”…2 TIMOTHY 4:1-5. (NKJV) Hello Saints! May God Bless the explication of His Holy Word and may He continue to touch our hearts. Amen. I hope everyone had a Happy New Year Celebration, and that you are starting 2015 with hearts renewed, spirits refreshed, and God ever closer to you. I am sitting at the computer New Year’s Morning, and I first must thank you all for allowing me to share what God has put on my heart for all of you during the past 7 months. Thanks to you and this cyberchurch I have the privilege of sharing Jesus with many good people, and of starting the New Year in prayer and study that these messages will be a Blessing to you. Bring a friend with you to communion and to these weekly posts and be assured you all stand in my prayers for a wonderful year of miracles ahead. Amen! In the New Year I begin by imagining myself in a room with other Christians who also want to live more for God in 2015. I imagine the Apostle Paul coming forward with advice for us all in how to grow in our walk with God. This passage of Scripture gives Paul’s ‘charge’ to us. We are to “Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.” (verse 2). Preach: an imperative from Paul. Be a living sign of the presence of God, and be able to talk about Jesus correctly and accurately at any occasion, in any place, at any potential time. There is no ‘off season’ for the Kingdom of God. People take well deserved vacations from their jobs, or from school. But to think of my Christian walk as something that has an ‘off-season’, makes it sound like a sport, or worse yet, a chore that has become tedious, and I need a break from it. God never ‘takes a break’ from us! He never abandons us because He tires of us. Preach the word: be ready to give a testimony of your faith and love for Him whenever the Spirit prompts you. God will provide the words to say. Consider it a joy to talk about God. We speak in glowing terms of the people whom we love, and our God should be no different. Convince. Be sure of your testimony. Now I should not be cocky or arrogant, but I should not be overly cautious either. I believe God loves me, and by faith I know He is real. My prayers should not be “Lord, if you are there, and if you still care for me…” He is real, and He loves me!!! Be convinced of the truth of His Word that He loves the whole world, and that includes you. Recall John 3:16 which perhaps we have said so many times that the verse becomes routine, but it is so true and beautiful: God so loved the world. That includes you, me, Tom, Suzanne, all of us. God so loves me, that He sent His only Son, to die, for me. Be convinced of that truth. Rebuke and exhort: stand firm in your faith, in love. Correct someone who is going down the devil’s road, in love. Exhort: encourage those who find it hard to go down God’s road. Speak a word that will uplift their souls. Make it a point to at least once a day, get in touch with someone in your world. Tell them how much you mean to them and how much God loves them. Tell them you love them enough to do what you can to pray them into Heaven. Encourage. Build up the body of Christ. I am Blessed with many ‘encouragers’ in my facebook world. They put me to shame. EVERY day they have a post, a comment, a word, designed to keep all their friends focused on God. Exhort. We all need each other to stand together in our faith. Pay a compliment daily. Lift the spirits of others. The Apostle Paul continues in verse 3 and 4: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers, (4) and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” How important it is to be firmly established in the word of God! The world, in many ways in the grip of the devil, does not prefer discipline, orders, sacrifice, or sound doctrine. Too many people are believing the lie that truth is old fashioned, and we must agree to disagree when opinions clash. This lie is called relativism. People like relativism because it excuses them. If I have a vice you disapprove of, or have a chronic sin displeasing to God, I can try to make excuses that allow me to stay ground in my evil, because I like it. Or I can turn away from sin, be faithful to the truth of God, and ask for the help to live His way, not for the excuse to live my evil way. Sound doctrine is hard to accept when it ‘cramps my style’. So I seek a false doctrine that would accept my evil ways. Saints: there are many false prophets, false teachers and fake religions in the 21st century, and we must stand on the Word of God as The Truth: not a truth among many, but The Truth sanctioned by God and written by God Almighty. All else are fables to sway the righteous, at the ultimate cost of their souls. We can help stop others from going astray: verse 5: “But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” Be watchful: pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Pray for God to speak to you to direct all of your behaviors, remove all that is not from Him from your daily walk, and anoint you with His Peace. Be careful not to fall into the devil’s traps. Ask God to protect you from the things you find appealing, but are not of God. Endure afflictions: realize that being a Christian is no guarantee that you will be shielded from all the problems this life could have, but be also assured that with God, all things are possible, and He holds your ultimate victory in hand. You may go through trials, but you may never go through them alone, amen! What a comforting word that may be for others struggling in their faith. Be an evangelist. Share the truth of God’s word and His work in your life. Be proud of your testimony and the miracles God has given you so far. More are coming. Fulfill your ministry. God has a role for us all to play in building up the Body of Christ. He has made you as the only ‘you’ in the world, and your talents and abilities are unique. They were gifts given to you to build up the Kingdom. Fulfill their functions. Even those who are poor can pray. Even those who are homebound can pray. We all remember Terri Schiavo, who lingered in a vegetative state for 15 years before she died in 2005. Terri could not communicate with anyone, yet how many lives did she impact. (My Google page reported more than 9 MILLION inquiries over Terri.) Every life is precious and every life was created by God to build up His Kingdom. Do not let the devil sell you the lie that you are not significant enough to have a ministry. For example, I am sure someone taught young Billy Graham in Sunday school. They may have thought their work very insignificant in God’s plan. Look what seeds they planted. Pray about what Kingdom-work God has for you in 2015. Pray for His help, and go forth. The Apostle Paul’s charge for us is to preach, convince, rebuke, exhort, be watchful, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist and fulfill our ministry. If we do this with God’s Help, 2015 will truly be a Happy New Year, for the Bible says: “He who heeds the word wisely will find good, and whoever trusts in the Lord, happy is he.” (Proverbs 16:20). But make no mistake: ‘heeding’ the word is not a sign of a person who cannot make up their own mind, it is a sign of a person knowing God is Lord, sovereign, and is the ultimate source of wise counsel. Those who heed the Word are not weak, but they are willing, to do the work of God. Shall we pray: Father God, thank You for another year, a time of renewal and new beginnings. Perfect us in your Holy Spirit, and give us the strength, the grace and the direction to do Your Work in our lives, and be faithful and good servants of Yours. We humbly ask in Jesus’ Name. Amen. And may He who has the whole world in His Hands Bless you: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Happy Lord’s Day to you, and give God praise with the music links below. youtu.be/aGlqJSKlEmA youtu.be/yu-2g2K7CEI
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 16:51:25 +0000
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