1 Timothy 3:1-16

In 1Timothy,Paul is writing as one given a role of encouraging all followers of Christ in how to nourish and protect our personal FAITH and that of those around us,as well as giving a “TRUE NORTH” for the “LIFE COMPASS” of every follower of Christ.In 1Timothy3:1-16 the Scripture begins with “Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer,he desires a noble task.Therefore....”.The entire chapter is relative for men AND women,even though the verses at first glance appear to be gender specific->the TRUTHS in all of these verses are aptly applied to men AND women!Everyone of us should pursue “noble tasks”!If not,we are pursuing tasks that are LESS THAN noble!So,these verses do NOT apply to only those followers of Christ that are being considered for leadership positions,but for every NOBLE/TRUE follower of Christ...which we all should be!Even though challenges and missteps come in our lives that have led to less than noble actions/experiences in our lives,turning away from these things (making course corrections)and trusting God’s awesome Mercy&Grace means that HE is always giving us an opportunity to become sons&daughters of the God of Creation...sons&daughters of THE HIGHEST NOBILITY there is...sons&daughters of THE KING OF KINGS! SO,Everyone who claims to be a Christian...needs to take these verses as a CALL on our hearts/minds/lives too make course corrections with a “TRUE COMPASS”...and respect the only “TRUE NORTH” as direction for our heart/mind/life.Everyone has an opportunity to change the direction of our lives and pick up the TRUE COMPASS for life.Problem we have today with the compass of our hearts/minds/lives is that it has so many interferences and untrustworthy “forces” confusing the needle away from “TRUE NORTH” that we are following a false compass for our heart/mind/life. Without establishing a TRUTH worth following in our lives we aren’t following a compass of any kind, and if we determine a false truth we will be very disappointed and lost at the end of our journey. There is only ONE TRUTH, there cannot be a personal truth chosen as truth for one person and then another truth for someone else. TRUTH is TRUTH, no matter what anyone may think The bottom line for all life is that GOD is GOD, and, “God was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Preached among the Gentiles, Believed in the world, Received up in glory(1Tim3:16). This is the TRUTH of the ONLY GOOD NEWS there is for TRUE ETERNAL LIFE DIRECTION - TRUE NORTH. Jesus is the only TRUE NORTH for the only TRUE COMPASS in this life - the ONLY TRUE NORTH to TRUST our lives with too get us to the only SAFE destination for life. In these verses we are given some basic “principles” to use in making the initial corrections to our heart/mind/life COMPASS.A pastor friend of mine once said in a sermon that if an airliner loaded with passengers took off from Atlanta and set a course for Anchorage, Alaska...if the pilots were not making constant course corrections with a TRUE COMPASS guiding them...if the plane was only a degree of course from takeoff to “landing”,by the time it traveled the +3000 miles(which should land it in Anchorage)it could possibly be so far off course that it might have to land at another destination.Dear Lord Jesus,I pray for THE TRUE NORTH of Your Word and Your Spirit to restore the Compass of my life to TRUSTWORTHINESS...and may I have Your Help in making the constant course corrections in my heart/mind/life that keep me on a course leading to NOBLE TASKS.

1 Timothy 1:17-19

When we do not give honor to The Lord in our hearts/minds/lives,by what we seek and hold on to as TRUTH in our hearts/minds/lives,then it is impossible to truly/sincerely have lives that give God glory in ways that are TRUE to WHO HE IS,and WHAT HE TELLS us ABOUT HIMSELF;HIS LOVE;HIS GRACE;HIS WISDOM;HIS MERCY,etc.!Followers of Christ are called to give glory to God by what we say and do. It does not mean that we are adding to the glory God already has. It means we are revealing the glory of God to the world through our words, lifestyle, and behavior. It also means that we are giving God our praise and adoration.Giving God Glory through our lives is ultimately made possible by humble submission to & dependence on nothing but The Lord;His Spirit;&His Word.When Paul is writing to Timothy,he is encouraging and warning the young man at the same time about these things!->1Timothy1:17-19,”Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight,keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.”.In these verses it is clear that HOW we “fight the good fight” is by protecting/disciplining what we seek to HONOR in our hearts/minds/lives and then by protecting/disciplining how we live/think/behave so that how we live/think/behave is truly shaped by WHAT we seek to HONOR.Only then do our lives give Glory to God...and only then is our faith kept away from being “shipwrecked”/lost!Dear Lord,keep my heart/mind/life away from all things that do not line up with Your Truths and Your Spirit...may Your Spirit living in me be what speaks louder than any other influence in my heart/mind/life...enabling a true devotion to & an HONOR for only YOU...and then help me to think;live;& behave in ways that give You Glory...

2 Thessalonians 3:1-5

Just as Paul is FULLY AWARE of Jesus Christ being ALIVE,he is also FULLY AWARE that there is an EVIL ONE ALIVE that is very capable of messing in and around our lives....in the ways EVIL will tempt us,as well as how EVIL influences us via people around us that do not honor the Word of the Lord->2 Thessalonians 3:1-5,”Finally, brothers,pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be HONORED,as happened among you,and that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men. For not all have faith.But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.And we have confidence in the Lord about you, that you are doing and will do the things that we command.May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.” These verses definitely communicate a direct relationship between HONORING The Word of The Lord and having FAITH-the kind of FAITH that Paul would identify as FAITH- the kind of FAITH  lived through the lives of those that made up the 1st century body of believers/the 1st century church...the “church” that so significantly impacted the world around them with The Gospel of Christ that the world around them was shook and changed in ways that HONORED The Word of The Lord! When we look at today’s world around the “church”-the cumulative lives of those that identify ourselves as the “church”-we are having little to no impact in many significant areas of the world for The Gospel of Christ! SO,our “cumulative faith” must not have something that the 1st century church had.One of these “things” is that we do not HONOR God’s Word as our 1st century brothers & sisters in Christ did!These people were personally seeking to HONOR The Word of The Lord in their hearts/minds/lives by seeking to learn&HONOR God’s Word with their hearts/minds/lives that The Gospel of Christ so influenced the world around them that even an Ethiopian Eunuch had become interested enough in The Word of The Lord that he was reading through it while traveling in a carriage(Acts8:26-40)!The way we have been living our lives in the U.S.A. the last 125 years has been steadily waning AWAY from HONORING God’s Word...and our country has been steadily moving AWAY from HONORING God’s Word,to the point that false religions have been “putting stakes down” and claiming lives all across our nation!And our “church” has been steadily moving AWAY from HONORING God’s Word in our hearts/minds/lives.Because we do not appreciate the link between HONORING God’s Word and seeking to UNDERSTAND God’s Word,as the Eunuch was seeking to understand God’s Word in his carriage. We are waning away from what Paul calls FAITH and toward a faith with a lackadaisical appreciation of God’s Word & more dependent upon what others say instead of what God will say to those whom earnestly seek to learn and understand HIS Word-just as The Lord did in the life of the Ethiopian Eunuch! We need to be more like the Eunuch, AND more like Phillip who The Lord used to guide the Eunuch to the TRUTHS of The Gospel of Christ! Those of us that are seekers&followers of Christ need to be as sincere about God’s Word as the Eunuch..,AND as prepared as Phillip obviously was to HELP the Eunuch understand God’s Word! Phillip was OBVIOUSLY an earnest seeker of God and HIS Word...an OBVIOUS HONORER of God’s Word...so Phillip had what Paul would call FAITH...the ONLY kind of FAITH that truly positively impacts the world around us for The Gospel of Christ.These verses make me ask myself “what kind of faith do I have?”.Dear Lord...create the same kind of hunger in me to seek and understand Your Word as the Eunuch....,and please lead me to the hunger for the same sincere preparedness of Phillip...dear Lord direct my heart “to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ” through HONORING YOUR WORD!

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17

In Randy Alcorn’s book “Heaven”,he says that one of the reasons we have challenges in our relationship with Jesus Christ and having an AWE for HIM, is that we have a tepid/halfhearted/indifferent appreciation for the heaven that Jesus said He has gone to prepare for us (John14:1-3,”Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God;believe also in me.My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”).Another is that we don’t “treat” our relationship with Jesus as if HE is TRULY FULLY ALIVE!These two areas are where Satan has done an effective job of undermining what should be a vibrant, spirited, energetic, vital, effervescent, dynamic, stimulating, passionate, relationship with Jesus Christ as our Lord & Savior!And why we are sometimes not as prone to seek,follow,and obey His Spirit & His Word.Paul,who had a FACE to FACE with The Resurrected Living Jesus on the road to Damascus-Acts9:1-21-says something to the Thessalonians that tells us that Paul was fully awed by the fact that Jesus is ALIVE and FULLY CAPABLE through HIS LIFE to help;encourage;strengthen;and guide us  in Deed&Word! Paul talks WITH Jesus on behalf of the Thessalonians when he says,”May our Lord Jesus HIMSELF & God our Father,who loves us and by HIS grace gave us eternal encouragement & good hope(bizzillions of reasons to be awed by the place Jesus has gone to prepare for us),encourage your hearts & strengthen you in every good deed and word”,2Thessalonians2:16-17.Paul is speaking with FULL BELIEF in a LIVING Jesus,& that Jesus HIMSELF has the LIVING ability to intercede in our lives!The FACT of Jesus being ALIVE is THE KEY element of Paul’s life change on the road to Damascus,AND in the way he lived from then on....and the way he dealt with people-as he does in these verses,talking/praying as one that is talking with & about another PERSON being FULLY ALIVE and FULLY CAPABLE of AWESOME intervention&guidance in the lives of not only himself but those around him as well!Paul is AWED by the LIVING Jesus,and by the “eternal encourage & good hope” that the resurrected LIVING Jesus is the designer and builder of.In today’s world,we have become less awed by both of these...we definitely do not have the awe & appreciation of these that Paul and others during his time had.Through the years since,Satan has been effective at diluting,confusing,and misleading the world about these TWO Ginormous Facts of all life...resulting in many Christians having a LESS THAN vibrant,LESS THAN spirited,LESS THAN energetic,LESS THAN vital,LESS THAN effervescent,LESS THAN dynamic,LESS THAN stimulating,LESS THAN passionate,relationship with Jesus Christ as our Lord & Savior!Dear Lord Jesus,I pray for YOU to open my eyes and heart as YOU did for Paul on the road to Damascus too know more and more of YOUR LIVING presence in & around my life,so that I may have YOUR eternal encouragement & good hope increasingly REAL in my heart,and may YOUR strength living through me help me in every good deed and word!

2 Thessalonians 2

In 2Thessalonians2:9-13 there is a critical encouragement for us to not only KNOW The Truths about all of life and life’s purposes,but to actually LOVE THE TRUTH! If we choose to have things that contend with TRUTH sway us from a LOVE/AWE for what is TRULY TRUTH,then we are the ones these verses state as those being deceived(2Thess2:9-11,”The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie,and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing.They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”).The ways that Satan works are via “signs and wonders” that lie and deceive us away from all that is TRUTH!Any time we let our “belief/life paradigms” veer from what is absolute TRUTH,we are in danger of succumbing to “how Satan works” in his efforts to deceive us away from the WORKS of GOD!God created all life and breathed into all life for the PURPOSE of revealing HIS Glory to us...so we would be drawn to know HIS Mercy&Grace through Jesus Christ.These are the primary TRUTHS that Satan desperately desires to deceive us away from!Not to mention the many other BLESSINGS of knowing and LOVING absolute TRUTH.God’s Word is THE FOUNDATION of all TRUTH!Any time we succumb to an effort of Satan to rob us of the significance/TRUTH of God’s Word we are in peril of “how Satan works”!And we become less in LOVE/AWE with TRUTH...and our love for The Lord begins to wane->we become decreasing awed by The WORKS of GOD!Eventually letting our lives be robbed of GOD’s Mercy&Grace by in essence our choosing to be deceived by “how Satan works”,instead of being awed by The WORKS of GOD.God,HIMSELF has placed inside everyone a desire to know TRUTH,and yet forever be AWED by TRUTH(humbled humongously by TRUTH because we will never fully fathom TRUTH!)->Ecclesiastes3:11,”HE has made everything beautiful in it’s time.Also HE has put eternity(absolute TRUTH)in their hearts,except that no one can find out the WORK of GOD from beginning to end.”.Everyone has been born with TRUTH embedded in our heart by GOD Himself.Just as today’s software can be destroyed by counterfeit software virus/lies,so our hearts/minds/lives can be destroyed by “all kinds of counterfeit miracles,signs,and wonders,and every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing.”,by our refusing to “love the TRUTH and be saved.”.Just as a software virus can be sneaky and slow in the ways it grows to finally destroy,the same is true in our lives when we allow deceptive unTRUTHs to veer our hearts away from the absolute TRUTH that The Lord originally embedded in our heart.Dear Lord, I pray for Your Spirit to breath fresh life into the original TRUTH that You knit into my heart when You made me...and may my LOVE for TRUTH be what draws me away from all things that could veer my heart away from TRUTH,and may this LOVE make me hungry for Your Word/Your Truths!