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Another Nail In The Devil’s Coffin

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: II Timothy 1
Meditation: II Timothy 1:8

“Never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord.”

Shift Your Focus… Why on earth would we ever be ashamed to share the Good News of Jesus Christ with others?  Yet often we are.  We are afraid people will reject us.  We worry that our “one way to God” message will cause us to come off as narrow and intolerant.  We stress out over not being able to adequately articulate the plan of salvation.  We assume there will be objections that we are ill-prepared to handle.

There are a hundred reasons we shrink back from sharing our faith, but I believe underneath them all is the fact that the Enemy hates the truth we bear.  So he works overtime to keep us from declaring it—inclusive of all the reasons I’ve already mentioned.  The very fact that even the thought of witnessing brings shame, fear, nervousness and reluctance is one strong proof in itself that the Gospel message really is the Good News of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Think about it: Are you ever reluctant to tell your neighbors about a fine dining experience you’ve recently enjoyed?  Are you ever timid about boasting of your favorite football team?  Do you ever worry about not having the right words to describe a can’t-miss movie?  Of course not!

So why the shame, fear and timidity over sharing about Jesus? Frankly, your Enemy doesn’t want you to since it puts him out of business!  That in itself is reason enough to seize the very next witnessing moment and lead someone out of the Enemy’s clutches. But while anger at the Enemy may be a motive, there’s an even better one for sharing our faith.  In the previous verse, II Timothy 1:7, Paul gives Timothy the antidote for his reluctance to share Christ,

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline.”

That’s God’s promise to you, too.  So the next time you are afraid and timid in a witnessing opportunity, reject those emotions. Remember, your self-discipline will enable you to brush aside the Enemy’s manipulation and tap into God’s power and love to share the greatest news to ever hit this planet.

If God gives you the opportunity today, go ahead, share your faith and put another nail in the devil’s coffin, because one of these days he’s going out of business for good. So let’s just speed him along!

“Let me not be a mile-post on a single road, but make me a fork that men must turn one way or another in facing Christ in me.” ~Jim Elliott

Prayer… Lord, today, give me an opportunity to tell someone about Jesus. By faith, I receive an infusion of your power and love.  Let them overflow from my life and touch someone with the wonderful story of your saving grace.

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Kiss Your Money Goodbye

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Timothy 6
Meditation: I Timothy 6:17

“Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God, who richly gives us all we need for our enjoyment.”

Shift Your Focus… I suppose this is akin to closing the barn door after the cows got out, but God’s Word has been telling us all along about the uncertainly of wealth and the foolishness of obsessing over the amassing of a financial fortune.  The crisis on Wall Street and the fear and loathing on Main Street that we read about in the daily headlines were predictable, not only because of the greed and incompetence that led to it, but because the eternal Word of God said it would be so.

Given the perpetual financial black clouds that now seem to be a part of our weather patterns, I think it is high time for believers to rethink their financial philosophy.  My suspicion is that most of us—and I include myself—have gotten a little too cozy with the economics of a world system that is fundamentally corrupt and inexorably headed for divine judgment.

I want to challenge you to put your financial philosophy as well as your current economic practices through the filter of I Timothy 6, and see what kind of a grade you come away with.  Reread Paul’s advice to Timothy in light of this current mess; pay particular attention to what he has to say about money and our attitudes toward it.  And most important, how about recalibrating your personal economic system to come into line with God’s Word?

Since the world’s economic system will become increasingly unstable, why not prepare for it by simply and ruthlessly living according to God’s precepts. One of those precepts is found in I Timothy 6:7,

“True godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.”

I am not an economist—by a long shot, but I will bet on God’s storehouse principles any day over the Treasury Secretary’s advice! And if we will follow God’s investment advice, we will have great wealth!

“The real measure of our wealth is how much we should be worth if we lost our money.” ~J. H. Jowett

Prayer…  Father, what a painful reminder our nation is now experiencing that love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.  Remind your church during this time of that indestructible financial principle that godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.  Help me to put all my trust, including my financial trust, in you.

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God’s Alternative To Government Bailouts

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Timothy 5
Meditation: ITimothy 5:8

“Those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers.”

Shift Your Focus… If you were to go on just the last few years, you would have to conclude that we now live in the era of perpetual government bailouts of financial institutions and gargantuan corporations. However—and unfortunately—these financial crises on Wall Street are only indicative of a society that has even bigger troubles all the way down on Main Street. Most observers of our culture would readily agree that the American family is in serious crisis—and that’s the real problem for our nation!

As family structures are weakened, greater and greater pressure is put on the government, the school system, various social institutions, and even the church to meet the needs of people that God intended families to meet. Just within the last decade or two in American society, we have witnessed a growing and alarming dependency on institutions to meet our needs. What our parents and grandparents understood to be their personal responsibility, we now expect someone or something else to provide.

The truth of the matter is, nowhere in the U.S. Constitution is our government required to provide universal health care or retirement benefits or low interest loans to high-risk endeavors or in general, a pain-free life. Our founding fathers did not guarantee our happiness, only the right for us to pursue it.

Likewise, the school system is not the answer to producing brighter and better citizens. Schools work best in educating their students when parents are heavily and intricately involved with their children in the learning process. When parents take the lead in their child’s education, the school can come alongside the parent’s efforts in a supportive role and be far more effective in producing young people who are ready to enter into society as well prepared and responsible citizens.

Furthermore, the Bible, our spiritual constitution, does not say that the institutional church is obligated to take care of every financial need its members may have. It was very specific about who should be helped, and who should not. The list of qualifying candidates was very slim, as you can read in I Timothy 5. Paul was very clear that believers ought to be reluctant in burdening the church by requiring resources that should be directed to other, more legitimately needy people.

The fact of the matter is, the government, the school and the church cannot meet every single need and every single want of its citizenry. Nor should it. But the family can and should be the place where needs are met and wants are vetted. God intended for families—both the nuclear family and the extended family—to be the place where the physical, emotional, educational and financial needs of the individual were addressed.

The breakdown of the family in today’s world explains why God’s family plan isn’t working very well—but it doesn’t excuse it. And it certainly doesn’t remove the responsibility we as individuals have to provide for our families.

So while social security threatens to implode, national health care is being hotly debated, welfare programs—individual and corporate—are being resurrected and ever-present socialism is peaking around the corner, the church needs to step in and lead the way in showing the world how God’s family plan is the real answer to these societal challenges.

God wants you to be sensitive and responsive to the needs of your family. Are you? If you are not, begin to reestablish and strengthen your family ties so that when the time comes, you can step in and help meet the needs of your loved ones. To rephrase Paul’s words, when you care for your relatives, especially those in your own household, you have affirmed the true faith, and in so doing, you have exemplified authentic Christianity.

“The family fireside is the best of schools.” ~Arnold Glasow

Prayer…  Dear God, I pray that you will help me to lead my family in such a way that we will demonstrate to a watching world how your family plan is the answer to what ills our society.

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Lose That Spiritual Flab

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Timothy 4
Meditation: I Timothy 4:7-8

“Train yourself to be godly. Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.”

Shift Your Focus… I like the way the Message Bible renders this verse: “Exercise daily in God—no spiritual flabbiness, please! Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever.”

Paul must have been an athlete, or at least a big sports fan. Just think about the variety of sports analogies Paul uses in his writings?  He talks about wrestling…“we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood,” he says in Ephesians 6:12. He talks about boxing in I Corinthians 9:26…“I don’t fight like a man beating the air.” In the next verse, he talks about physical training… “I discipline my body like an athlete.” (v. 27) But the sports analogy that Paul uses most often is that of a runner.  In Philippians 3:14, Paul pictures himself as a runner leaning into the tape to get the prize at the finish line:  “I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

Paul was quite deliberate in ridding his life of spiritual flabbiness and training for godliness. He wasn’t passive about his spiritual fitness; he didn’t leave it up to chance. Nor should you! Looking at Paul’s training regimen, here are four training tips that you too can follow to achieve the spiritual fitness necessary to excel in your Christian race:

Training Tip #1:  Don’t forget Whom you are running for!  If you want to run strong and finish well, remember you are running for a heavenly prize: The approbation of a previous running champion, Jesus Christ!  Remember the great cost in the race he won to pave the way for you.

Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Training Tip #2:  Don’t look back! Philippians 3:13-14 says, “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

You might remember the inspiring true story of missionary Eric Liddell in the movie Chariot’s of Fire.  He ran in the 1924 Paris Olympics. One of the athletes comes close, but loses his race, so the coach shows him a picture of the finish, which reveals why he lost.  The runner took his eyes off the finish line and looked to the side at the other runners. That’s the cardinal rule of running:  don’t look back; to run a fantastic race, focus on the finish. Hebrews 12:1 says, “let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”

What are the weights and sins that entangle you and keep you from running your race?  I Corinthians 9:25 says, “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.”  Paul says you’ve got to shed those pounds if you are going to pursue the prize!

Training Tip #3:  Train with champions. Who are you training with?  Who are you hanging out with? Who is speaking into your life—and what is the message they are speaking?  Who and what are influencing your life and your walk with God?

Paul knew the reality of good and bad influences upon the race, and he talked about it in Philippians 3:15-19: “All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.”

When Don Shula first began coaching the Miami Dolphins he showed film of the then NFL champion Baltimore Colts.  The Dolphins not only watched the Colts execute plays with precision, they saw how the Colts encouraged each other between plays.  They would help each other up…pat each other on the back.  Shula challenged the Dolphins to imitate the Colts during the play and after the whistle was blown. “That’s the way to become champions,” Shula said.  And they did—becoming the last team to go undefeated in a season and win the championship.

Find a find spiritual champion and learn from them.  Hebrews 13:7 says, “Take a good look at the way they live, and let their faithfulness instruct you…”

Training Tip #4:  Keep your eye on the prize.  Philippians 3:20-21 reminds us, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”

There is nothing wrong with envisioning the reward at the finish line. We’re all motivated by the thought of a reward; God designed us that way.  I Corinthians 9:25-26 (LB) says, “To win the contest you must deny yourselves many things that would keep you from doing your best…but we do it for a heavenly reward that never disappears.  So I run straight to the goal with purpose in every step.”

If you’re going to make it to the finish line, you need eternal motivation.  That’s why you’ve got to fix our eye on Jesus. His rewards never fade or perish.

You are in a race—the race of your life—so train yourself to be godly!  Keep your eye on the prize. Train with champions—get some good people on your spiritual fitness team.   Don’t look back—forget yesterday’s failures and successes.  Remember the One you are running for.

And by all means, run strong and finish well!

“For a small reward, a man will hurry away on a long journey; while for eternal life, many will hardly take a single step.” ~Thomas A` Kempis

Prayer… Father, the prize at the end of my spiritual race is worth every effort I can make now to get fit, run strong, and finish well.  I will press on to win that prize. Strengthen me for my race in such a way that I will hear you say, “well run, good and faithful servant.”

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Proper Church Behavior

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Timothy 3
Meditation: I Timothy 3:14-15

“I am writing you these instructions so that…you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God.”

Shift Your Focus… One of the big differences I have noticed between my parents (they were Great Depression era babies) and me (a Baby Boomer) and the different generations we represent is our attitude toward authority. People of my parents generation seemed to quietly, willingly and obediently accept authority while people of my age and younger seem to automatically question authority. The rebelliousness of the 60’s marked that sea change from the respectfulness of the 50’s. Nothing captures this change better than the philosophy popularized by whacky 60’s psychologist Timothy Leary, who preached, “Think for yourself and question authority.”

Though sounding good on its face, in reality it has been taken to an extreme to where authority isn’t just questioned now, it is resented, and in many cases, rejected out of hand. For the most part, this attitude toward authority has had a deleterious effect in our society in general, and specifically it has had a corrosive effect in our homes, in our schools, and even in our churches.

We need to be very careful in our response toward all authority in our lives. I am certainly not promoting blind submission to anyone who is in charge. God has given you a brain, and you need to use it to “think for yourself.” Likewise, you have every right, and a God-given responsibility, to question the validity of anything that seems contrary to the values of the kingdom. Yet at the same time, you must recognize the divinely ordained role of the leaders whom God has placed in your life.

I would suggest to you that one of the best and first places to begin evaluating your attitude and response to leadership is in the church. Now since I am a pastor, this may sound somewhat self-serving, but the reality is, God is very concerned with peace, love and harmony in his family, the church. That is why letters like I and II Timothy were written. That is why God gave very clear instructions for church leadership roles, such as pastors, elders and deacons.

The church is a family, and like any family, there needs to be loving, wise, and honorable parents in order for the family to be healthy and happy. Likewise, there needs to be honor and respect from the children toward the authority of the parents. So it is in the household of God. Paul was very concerned that people understood God’s “code of conduct” for life in the family, and the role of the leaders was to ensure good and honorable behavior in the church.

I say all this to challenge you to review your attitude toward the leaders who serve you, especially in the church, the most important arena in which you live. I hope that you will look at your spiritual leaders in a different light from here on out. I hope that you will have a whole new appreciation for them. I hope that you will encourage them more often than you do now. I hope that you will pray more diligently for them, since they have a very difficult task on their plate. I hope that you will respond to their authority more respectfully and trustingly the next time there is a leadership initiative. And if you sense they are leading in a way that is incongruent with kingdom values, think it through, question them about it, but do it with honor and love.

The writer said it this way in Hebrews 13:17,

“Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.”

Ask yourself this question: Am I a delight for my spiritual leaders to lead?

“The authority by which the Christian leader leads is not power but love, not force but example, not coercion but reasoned persuasion. Leaders have power, but power is safe only in the hands of those who humble themselves to serve.” ~John Stott

Prayer… Dear Father, make me a delight for my spiritual leaders to lead. Make me an instrument of love, peace and harmony in my spiritual family. May I also conduct myself in your household in a way that respects my leaders and honors you.

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Pray For The President—It’s In Your Best Interests

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Timothy 2
Meditation: I Timothy 2:1-3

“I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior.”

Shift Your Focus… In a recent presidential campaign, it was purported that one of the candidate’s own mother said that you might have to hold your nose and vote for her son. With a mom like that, who needs an opposition party!

If the Apostle Paul were writing today to twenty-first century American believers, he’d probably say, “Not only do I want you to vote, I want you to make sure you pray for the candidates.  And while you are at it, I want you to also pray for the president and congress—Republican and Democrat, conservatives and liberals alike. It’s in your best interest to lift them daily before the Father’s throne.  Besides, it pleases God when you do!”

That is a hard pill to swallow these days with the rapscallion Republicans and disingenuous Democrats who are ruling our land. If you are like me, you find their hypocritical lifestyles, their pandering politics, their out-of-control spending, and the blatant disregard for God in their politics odious.  Frankly, it’s hard for me to pray for them. Perhaps Paul just didn’t foresee the kinds of political leaders we would have to put up with in our time, much less pray for.

Wait just a minute!  Did you ever consider who the emperor was when Paul wrote these words, and what conditions were like during the first century?  The emperor was none other than Nero—one of the worst of the worst of all the Roman emperors.  Without going into all the horrific details, Nero was responsible for some of the worst persecution against Christians at any time in history.

Yet Paul says to the believers of his day, “Pray for him.  Intercede on his behalf…even thanking God for his leadership.”  Huh?  That’s right!  Paul wanted the church to pray for this horrible man so that God would use his leadership as a launching pad for the propagation of the Gospel.

Wow!  If the believers of Paul’s day could pray for a leader like Nero—a man who was bent on torturing and killing them, then there is no legitimate reason I can come up with to resist genuinely praying for the men, and perhaps women, who are or will be my president.

I am obligated to pray, intercede, and be grateful to God on their behalf.  When I do, I demonstrate that I am a believer not just with a political view, but a citizen with a kingdom view.  And better still, I invite Divine pleasure into my life by taking such a godly posture.

I don’t know about you, but I think I will pray for my leaders today!

“The government of the United States is acknowledged by the wise and good of other nations, to be the most free, impartial, and righteous government of the world; but all agree, that for such a government to be sustained many years, the principles of truth and righteousness, taught in the Holy Scriptures, must be practiced.”  ~Emma Willard, 1843 

Prayer… Heavenly Father, I lift the political candidates of both parties, as well as the President and the leaders of Congress before your throne. I pray for their wellbeing and wisdom. Give them courage and resolve to do the right thing. I ask that you use them as your instruments to create the kinds of conditions in which the Gospel will best grow. Thank you for them. Bless them. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

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Even Dirty Rotten Sinners

5×5×5 Bible Plan

Read: I Timothy 1
Meditation: I Timothy 1:15-16

“‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’—and I am the worst of them all. But God had mercy on me so that Christ Jesus could use me as a prime example of his great patience with even the worst sinners. Then others will realize that they, too, can believe in him and receive eternal life.”

Shift Your Focus… If God could save Paul, God can save anyone.  He was a super-pious religious zealot who thought he was doing God a favor each time he imprisoned, persecuted, or killed a Christian.  He was intolerant, close-minded, bigoted, and arrogant—on a good day.

And yet God reached him. Actually God slapped him up side the head on the Damascus Road one day. You can read that dramatic story in Acts 9.  Paul was radically and completely transformed by his encounter with the risen Savior.  He had met Jesus, and in that meeting, he didn’t stand a chance. He became a trophy of God’s grace.

Now the truth is, you weren’t any better off that the pre-converted Paul before God found you. Neither was I. We were dirty rotten sinners, too, but now we are trophies of God’s grace. We were messed up, sin prone, hell bound sinners who deserved nothing but eternal punishment. But we were just the kind of people that Jesus came into this world to redeem. And for that, you and I will give thanks before the throne of God for all eternity.

So here’s the deal: If God could save dirty, rotten sinners like Paul, you and me, he can save that resistant sinner who lives in the same house as you, or who lives next door, or who goes to your school, or works in the office next to you. You have been praying for them, but there seems to be no response, no interest, not even the slightest crack in their spiritual armor.

Don’t give up!  They may be just a persistent prayer or a kind act or a verbal witness away from getting totally messed up through a radically transforming encounter with Jesus. That’s why he came: To save sinners just like them. He saved Paul, didn’t he?  He saved you, didn’t he?

Maybe that dirty rotten sinner you’re praying for is next!

“Either sin is with you, lying on your shoulders, or it is lying on Christ, the Lamb of God.  Now if it is lying on your back, you are lost; but if it is resting on Christ, you are free, and you will be saved.  Now choose what you want.” ~Martin Luther

Prayer… Dear Father, thank you for your redeeming grace in my life.  I will never get over that.  Throughout eternity I will fall before your throne in humble gratitude for saving me, the worst of sinners.  Now Lord, release your saving grace to those dear people in my life who do not know you.  Confront them with your love—today.  Make them the newest trophies of your grace.