1 Timothy 1: 1-16
Paul, in verse one writes to Timothy that he is on a special assignment for Christ who is our living hope. This is a great piece of daily bread because Paul recognizes his job for Christ and then refers to Him as our living hope. That is some awesome imagery right there. To think of Jesus Christ as our living hope is pretty encouraging because it means that Christ is not some "pie-in-the-sky" hope or a distant, iffy kind of a hope...He is a living hope, a hope that drives the hearts of passionate Christians.
When Paul is writing this letter to Timothy, he is extremely grateful that God has made him adequate to do his work. He cannot even begin to fathom how God could possibly trust him with this ministry after what he used to do to the very people he is trying to reach out to now. Then in v. 14 Paul gives all the glory of his hard work back to our merciful God when he writes, "Grace mixed with faith and love poured over me and into me." That is a greta example of God's mercy. No matter how bad we screw up or how far we stray away from him, he can still use us to better his kingdom. Paul then goes on to confess that he is Public Sinner # 1 (v. 15) Paul does not say this to draw attention to how great of a change he has made but instead to give God the glory for changing and convicting. He also proves to the people around him that Jesus Christ really did come into the world as a sacrifice for EVERYONE.
Paul is a great person to try and pattern our daily lives after. I would love to be able to say, "Hey, you want to follow Jesus...really follow him and seek after him with all your heart??? Then you can come follow me...I can show you the Way."
1 comment:
There are some awesome people in the Bible whom I can only hope to achieve the depth of faith that they have.
Paul for one. That statement of "you wanna see how Jesus looks, acts, thinks... look at me. I'll show you how." I can only hope to ever be able to think about maybe possibly saying that. Awesome.
Another one is Job. Some of the most powerful versus in the Bible, in my opinion, are Job 1:20-21, "Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." To think that Job, a man who had everything and then had everything torn from him would say, "I will worship You. You gave everything to me, and you took it all back. Blessed be your name." Awesome.
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