2 Timothy 2 - Mentorship

Tom Shrader continues his series through 2 Timothy by examining Paul's instructions to be strong in grace, entrust truth to faithful people, and avoid worldly entanglements. Using illustrations of a soldier, athlete, and farmer, he emphasizes the need for focused dedication, discipline, and diligence in the Christian life. He challenges believers to practice mentorship and resist the countless distractions of modern life that can derail spiritual priorities.

“What separates biblical Christianity from every other religion in the world is one word, and it's a troublesome word - it's the word grace.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: How to Find Meaning in a Collapsing World

Recorded: June 05, 2014

Duration: 38 min

Themes: grace, mentorship, discipline, dedication, diligence, focus, priorities, distractions, mentor, spiritual leader, struggling with focus, new believer, pastor, facing distractions, young adult, seeking spiritual growth

Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:1-8, 2 Corinthians 5:14, John 3:16, Philippians 4:9, 1 Corinthians 9:24

Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual maturity, discipleship, biblical authority, grace theology, christian living, pastoral instruction, faithful stewardship

Full Transcript

Let me invite you to open your Bible to 2 Timothy chapter 2. We are in our third session in this book of what will be six sessions, and some of you probably feel like we're crawling through this. We are, at least from my perspective, flying through this material where there's a lot of stuff that we're leaving unsaid, sections that we're skipping over.

I want you to get a flavor of how important the chapter by chapter, verse by verse study is. It changes with every book. If you just open up something like the book of Hebrews and jump in, you're going to find yourself in some tall weeds pretty quickly. But if you take a book like 2 Timothy, the book of James, some of the Gospels, the majority of books really in the New Testament, you could go in with a yellow pad and pretty quickly pull out an awful lot of information and practical information. That's what we're trying to do in this—for some of you, just whet your appetite for this study.

The Four Imperatives

We're in chapter 2, and actually chapter 2 verses 1 and 2 provide us a great summary of where we've been and where we are right now. Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 2 verse 1: "You therefore, my son, be strong in grace that is in Christ Jesus, and the things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses these entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also."

There are four imperatives in this section that we're looking at. Verse 1: Paul says, "be strong." Verse 2: "entrust to faithful men." Verse 3: "suffer." Verse 8: "remember." Paul's giving instruction to this man, Timothy, and again it's the idea of His beloved son, not sharing a chain of DNA, but Paul was Timothy's mentor.

Be Strong in Grace

He says in verse 1, "You therefore, my son, be strong in grace." So I want your strength to come from grace, and where do I find grace? In Christ Jesus.

For some of you, this may be brand new, and if it's just one of you for whom this is new, it's worth all of us taking a moment and pointing out what separates biblical Christianity from every other religion in the world: this idea of grace. Intuitively, unless there's something drastically wrong with you psychologically, you know something's wrong with you, and that we call sin. The natural reaction is to try to do something about it, to try to fix it, and that's called religion, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. You may be sacrificing goats, or you may be saying "I'm not going to eat candy during Lent," or you may say "I'm going to go to Bible study on Thursday," but that's religion.

What separates biblical Christianity from every other religion in the world is one word, and it's a troublesome word. It's a word we should love, but it presents lots of problems for us, because we don't do well with it oftentimes. It's the word grace. I'm saved by grace through faith. I live by grace. It's not a license then to live any way I want to live, but it becomes the motive for how I live.

What compels us? Second Corinthians 5:14: "The love of Christ compels us." What was the love of Christ? That He so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but will have everlasting life. Paul writes to this son Timothy, and he said listen, I want you to be strong, and your strength comes from grace, and that grace is found in Jesus.

Entrust to Faithful Men

Verse 2: "And the things which you heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men who will entrust them to others." You get a chain there. You get a chain reaction. It fits into what we've spent in both of the first two sessions time talking about—the idea of a mentor-protégé.

I want you to entrust—the word means literally to deposit for safekeeping. So he said here's what I want you to do, Timothy. I want you to take that which you heard from me, this body, this truth, this lifestyle, this doctrine, and find others entrusted to them, not so they become the end in and of themselves, but so they can begin to entrust it in others.

We've made the pitch, presentation, encouragement the last two weeks to be encouraged in this idea of mentoring, mentorship. There should be in your life those Pauls who are represented by somebody who spiritually is more mature than you, and those Timothys, somebody who's spiritually less mature than you. And let me say it again, it's gender-specific. Women with women, men with men.

Real-Life Examples of Mentorship

So Sandy at our Tempe campus—though we were gone Sunday, Ricardo was teaching, and I don't know if it was, he's doing five topics. We have five weeks off at our campuses so we can do, each of the campuses do whatever they want to do. Ricardo's decided to do topics, so one of them was singleness. And that campus is a little bit, chronologically, a little bit younger than the others. And Sandy said she had eight emails from gals who wanted to get together and talk about that. So these are eight new gals.

Her time, a lot of it, is consumed with people. So last night, or yesterday, we had our normal Wednesday. So she gets up and swims, I do physical therapy, we catch up around noon, and then in the afternoon I go to rehab. By the way, I haven't talked about it in a while—I continue to be the stud in rehab. I'm dominating. One guy came in, he's a heart attack victim, and they have a huge advantage in this, because they haven't had surgery. So he displaced me, I think, as the leader for a week or two, but I think I've reemerged. Yeah, and so I only have five left, so I'm looking forward to getting out of there.

So I go to rehab, Sandy went to the dentist, and then to surgery, and then we got together last night to eat, and then Sandy, last night, meets with two girls. One who says she's a believer, but doesn't act like it, and one who says "I really need this, but I don't believe it." And she meets with them every Tuesday—we were out of town, so Wednesday night—to go through the Gospel of John. And she probably has a system of about

The Importance of Relational Mentoring

20-25 girls who are in and out of her life in this. She's modeling what this is all about, spending time with them. You get it? The things that you heard from me. In the book of Philippians, chapter 4, verse 9, Paul writes this, "the things that you have learned, received, heard, and seen in me, practice these things." Well, if I'm going to see them, hear them, learn them, it means skin on skin. It's time together.

So in this quest, I made a list. I've just noticed that generally people seem to be intimidated by the idea of mentoring. And I want to encourage you, it means going and hanging out. It just means being available. And these younger, inexperienced people will find you. Now I think you can be proactive too.

Five Qualities to Look for in a Protégé

I made a list of five qualities that I look for in a protégé.

### Number One: A Questioning Mind

Number one, a questioning mind. Now maybe that's better said curious mind. Not somebody who's endlessly asking questions just so we have questions forever. But somebody who's curious, who wants to know.

My daughter Sarah was born and her first word was not mom or dad. Her first word, it was indicative of what was to come, her first word was why. And it was endless questions. You've had them too. I'm spending a lot of time with the grandkids now and so I'm reliving all this. But Sarah would ask, why is grass green? Why is the sky blue? One day I had her in the car and she said, why do we sleep lying down? And I said, your mom told us to. I don't know.

And so that bothered me for a while and we started talking. Well she had seen a show on TV the night before where the astronauts, when they would take their sleep, would go in a little compartment and just Velcro themselves in and sleep standing up. Well what's that mind? Not a disrespectful mind, but a curious mind. Why aren't things the way they are and do they need to be this way?

### Number Two: Teachable and Coachable

Here's the second thing. You want somebody that's teachable or coachable. So often what's going to happen in this relationship is the protégé is going to say I've got this issue and you know, what do you think I ought to do about it? Now nine times out of ten, I'll say what do you think you ought to do? And nine times out of ten, they know. So it's generally not lack of information, but they want confirmation. And then you say yeah, I think that's what we ought to do. Do you agree with that? Yeah. All right, well, you work on that. Next week when we get together, we'll see how you're doing.

And you get together next week and you say well, how did that go? You say well, I didn't really get to it. Okay, we're going to give you one on that. But why didn't you get to it? Well, I just didn't get to it. Okay. Let's review. You agree. This is the problem. This is the source. This is a solution, right? Yep. Okay, then let's work on it next week. How'd it go? Well, I didn't. The game went to extra innings and I didn't get to it. That's when I say I'm going to miss you.

Okay, and it's not because I'm so special. But you aren't. And I have a finite amount of time and I'm not going to spend it where everybody goes we agree on this but you aren't going to do anything about it. You're the least committed. You're the one who needs this relationship the most and you're the least committed to it. You can't spend time. They'll waste your time too. I'm a friend who spends months and months and months meeting with people that I would blow out of there at the end of the second meeting and he's frustrated and rarely does anything happen. Okay, so you want somebody that has a questioning mind and is teachable.

### Number Three: A Heart for God

Here's the third thing. They've got a heart for God. I met a few weeks ago with a young business guy. He's from the commercial real estate industry and I have distant ties there from my old days and he wanted to get together. If all he wanted to talk about was commercial real estate, I'm not sure I'm the guy to talk to begin with. But he was talking about how do we integrate that discipline into my life that allows me to maintain it? Cut me slack on the term because it's not my favorite, a balanced life.

But there was more than that. He was saying how does God fit into that? How do I, and what he meant was not how does God fit into it, but how does God come into it? How do I and how do I bring this and align this thing vertically? So if he just wanted to get better real estate or balanced life so that he could play more golf—I'm getting close by the way. A week from Saturday? My guard to. Is that right? Yeah, two weeks from Saturday is my goal. So not just play more golf.

But here's the thing: to take God and find God in the midst of all of this. So we have a phrase that we use at the Redemption churches: All of life is all for Jesus. And what we're saying is in the words of Abraham Kuyper, there's not one square inch of the universe over which God does not declare mine. How do I take that and put that to work? So you want to make sure this person is teachable, has a questioning mind but has a heart for God.

### Number Four: Willing to Pay a Price

Here's the fourth thing: that they're willing to pay a price. Jesus says it's a foolish man who begins a building project without first accounting the cost.

God saved me March 6, 1980. Add 14 to that. So what is that, March 20th, 1980? I came in to Larry and I said, hey, you know, I'm doing all right here. What do I do next? And he said you need somebody to disciple you. I don't know what that is. So he explained it, hang out and all that. And I said well, you're the only person I know. And he said well I don't do that. I just, my schedule's full and I can't. I said well if I need it and you say I need it and you don't do it, I'm deficient because I don't have anybody else.

So he called and he said listen, I'll do this. We'll do it. I'll make a commitment. We'll do it for a year. I said, all right. He said how's Tuesday? I said Tuesday's fine. He said how about six o'clock Tuesday at the, you know, the place at the Humpty Dumpty on Central North of Camelback. I said, all right. What time? He said six o'clock.

I said that's perfect I get off work at five and he said No, six a.m. I'm not a morning person. 6 a.m. I said, oh, okay. Now I'm making a commitment. I'm coming from kind of North Central Scottsdale. I didn't know at the time where Larry lived was 75th Avenue and Bell and there weren't any 101s and 202s and all these things and it was a long shot down there.

So we're about three months into it and we're having a great time. I think I've mentioned to you before we didn't have any great curriculum. He first started with what I call the little crank in the blanks books. You've seen them, you know for God so loved John 3:16 and I had to look up love the way this is stupid. I can do this on my own I mean there's got to be something more to it and then we take a little book and maybe a chapter and things we read and we would just talk.

After about three months Larry said do you want to move the time and I said no, I'm you know, it gets me down here and I get to work and it's fine. I said, why are we meeting at 6 o'clock though on Tuesday? And he said I have a lot of guys that want to meet but they want to meet at 10 o'clock in the morning in their office. And I want to make sure that you want to pay a price for this. I learned that at the time not that I went, oh, wow I've got to incorporate that, but over the years I've had so many people who want to meet and it's always can you come by my office around 10:30 and I'll get there at 10:30 and then he's in a meeting, he's late. I've learned that it has to be somebody who's willing to pay a price for this because it really is worth what you're put into it.

The Four Ingredients of Teaching

The last one I was driving along one day Chuck Swindoll is speaking and he said I want to talk to those of you who want to teach. And I want to give you four ingredients you need as a teacher and I thought okay this is me. I had to write it down.

He said number one you need to study. All right, I can do that. Number two, you need to make an interesting engaging presentation. Got that. Number three, this is one of my undervalued strengths, you need to take complicated things and make them simple and take simple things and keep them simple. So all of this is making sense to me, study, good presentation, complicated simple, simple simple.

He said number four is the key if you're a good teacher. So I know okay I better write this down if it's the key and he said you need to and if we sat here until happy hour tonight, you couldn't come up with this. He said you need to love the people you teach.

I find a lot of people who do what I do for whom this is a gig. Who see their objective as developing a good lesson and delivering it. I'm teaching this Sunday at Gilbert and I'm so focused on the lesson that I've got to make sure I get that last step in there which is I understand I'm speaking to people who I love and part of loving them is seeing God use the message for life change. You better find if you're mentoring somebody you better find somebody that you love, somebody you care about. Not begrudgingly hating so that this pops up every Monday night on your reminder that tomorrow morning at 6 you got this meeting with a person. These need to be people you love.

Well, Paul says to Timothy and I get the direct context is Him as a pastor, but I think He says to you as well. Take these things that you're learning and find somebody else and deposit them in them. And the challenge after a little after a year Larry said I'll meet with you. We're not going to meet every week. We can go to once a month but you need to go find somebody that you meet with and that's been a consistent part of my life really ever since.

Three Illustrations for Christian Living

Verse 3 through 6 He gives us some practical illustrations of what this Christian life should look like. Verse 3, suffer hardship with me as and there's three illustrations, as a good soldier. Verse 4, for no soldier in active duty entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so He may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. Verse 5, now also as an athlete compete and win a prize. You don't do so unless you play according or compete according to the rules. And verse 6, the hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops.

Paul warns us in verse 3. It's said again in verse 9 and maybe in a more summary way in verse 12 of chapter 3 when He said all those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. There is a suffering that's associated with the Christian life. And He said in the midst of that suffering, I want to give you three illustrations here of characteristics that should be in your life.

So He uses three pictures that still work today: a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer. Now, whenever you have an illustration, parables are like this, illustrations are like this, generally I'm looking for the big point. That's the problem challenge with a lot of interpreting the parables. There's typically one big point, but there's these sub points that preach so well, that lend themselves to great stories. Not the prime point, and I can end up with this great lesson and miss the prime point.

So I wanted to pull each characteristic that I think Paul's talking about with these three. So for the soldier, He's saying you need to be dedicated, or single-minded, or focused. For the athlete, you need to be disciplined, under control, self-control. And for the farmer, you need to be diligent, hard-working. I hate that there's three D's there, that sounds so Baptist-y, but that's the way it turned out.

The Dedicated Soldier

Let's look at them. Verse four, this is one of my all-time fun reflective verses. No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life, so that they may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. So we'll start at the end. The objective here is not for the soldier to win the battle, it's to please the one who enlisted you. Well, the one who enlisted you in this army of Christ is God Himself, and without faith

It's impossible to please God. So what He's saying is, there should be this faith that's principled and present in my life, and the trap to that—and this is, I love this—this is a perfect example of a verse that you could take a week and just mull it over, think about it, take 10 or 15 minutes a day and start to make notes. "No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life."

So the warning is, don't be entangled in the affairs of everyday life. So what are those affairs? What are those things that bog us down?

The Soldier's Simple Life

Now, the soldier, for those things that we have to think about, the soldier, it's designed for Him. They didn't wake up this morning at Fort Huachuca and go, "Wow, it's Thursday, let me see, what should I wear? I'm going with the blue today because it makes my eyes look blue." No, they went brown for breakfast and they said—they didn't go, "What do you want?" They go, "You want this? No, I don't think so. You want that? I don't think so. All right, lunch is at 11:30. We're done." It's not like at home where we're going to cook something for you.

This is how complicated life has gone. I go to a place about once a month called Eggington. So it's a restaurant out our way. And I order something called the plain and simple. And here's how—and this is almost real time every time. Now, so I have the plain and simple. Well, that's good. "How would you like your eggs?" "What are my choices?" "Well, scrambled, over easy, over medium, over hard, poached, fried." "Okay, poached." "Toast?" "Okay." "Bread, what are my choices?" "White, wheat, nine grain, rye, I think there's a marble rye, sourdough, English muffin." "I have the English muffin." "Meat?" "Well, what are my choices?" "Well, we have ham, we have sausage." I'll say sausage, and they'll say, "Okay, link or patty?" I'll go patty. And then I'll always say, "I ordered the plain and simple, right?" That's what I had, plain and simple.

The Trap of Too Many Choices

One of the challenges of living in the culture we live in is that these choices come at us over and over and over again. And they require so much time. I was watching a show on Costco, which is like—I love Costco. And they were talking and interviewing a lady, and I can't remember what it was. It was a household product, like pledge type stuff. And the interviewer said, "You know, you only carry four brands." She said, "We used to carry 12. But we discovered with 12, there were too many choices. And we found that four is about the perfect number, that our sales increased when we decreased choices. Because all of a sudden, it became a matter of, well, what does this do? And what does that do? And the comparison became so complicated, and it was compromising so much time."

I've been trying to find a pair of running socks—not that I intend to run, but they're comfortable on my feet. I cannot find the socks. So I went in a running store the other day, and there was a section this big, it had to be 15 different styles of socks. Remember when you just got white socks and put them on? And there's blister, anti-blister, and they're thin. And then now it's, do you want them so that you can't see them under the shoe or over the shoe? And I said to Sandy, "I got to go get something to eat. I don't know what to do. I'm paralyzed with the socks."

Well, these choices seem good, but they're traps. So it was Solzhenitsyn who said, "I truly found freedom in the gulag, because all my choices are gone." Isn't it fascinating that some of the great works of literature were written in prison? Pilgrim's Progress. You got a lot of time to focus.

The Warning About Life's Entanglements

And the warning—and it's probably either too late because the choices aren't there for you, you have 14 minutes left, or you've already figured out—the warning in life is these choices become distractions, the entanglements of life. So that famous quote from Jim Elliot, this is so good: "Our needs multiply as they're met."

So I teach in Sunday out in Gilbert, okay? So for those of you from here, that's a little town, far away, where we have retail. And it's a funny little great town. When I got here, it was 2,000. Now it's like 140,000. And we have—we're in the East Valley, but like 25 or 30 miles east of us, they started building, this would have been about five, six years ago, these new developments. And so land prices were lower, and lots of young families began leaving our church to move out there.

So I would, from the front, on a Sunday, oftentimes under criticism from people, say, "Listen, you need to think this through. This is, on the surface, a very appealing, but underneath, a very stupid move. You're going out there because you think it's an investment. Houses aren't investments. You know, you just trade them, okay? You're going out there for an investment. You're going out there because you can get another spare bedroom, and you have three kids, and each kid, we know, needs their own room. Or you want a spare bedroom."

"Well, those extra bedrooms need to be furnished, and air-conditioned, and insured, and put on a 30-year mortgage. And you're going to move out there, and the freeways, and the four-lane roads aren't in, it's two-lane traffic, and that 25 miles is going to take 45 minutes of intense driving every day. And I hesitate to say, because you think it's self-promoting, you're going to miss your church people. You aren't going to travel 25 minutes. You aren't going to run into each other at the store."

When Entanglements Come Home to Roost

But, of course, you couldn't talk them out of it. So they go out there, as gas prices go to $4, as the defaults come in, and their values drop, and then they sit around and say, "We've been out there a month, and we haven't seen any of our friends." I don't want to do "what I told you so." I simply say, "Listen, I told you this. It's not in some bad way. This is the kind of stuff everyday life entangled you. You had to have that spare bedroom. Now they're coming to stay with you in a cold winter, and you're complaining you have friends there who are guests."

who stay in your guest room. Life will entangle us in a thousand different ways.

I have to have that car. I have no problem with material stuff, trust me. But you can get a car that moves and gets you where you're going for 10 or 15 grand, probably less and maybe a little more. Or you can spend thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars on a car. At some point, it's not about transportation.

It's like a watch. Sandy just got a new watch because for running, she's having a hard time seeing some of the dials, so she got a bigger dial, got it through Amazon, I don't know, 20 bucks. Timex. Well, you can buy a watch that tells time for 20 bucks, for five bucks, probably. But you got this watch, nice watch, tells time 20 bucks. Or you can spend 20 grand, probably can't see the time as well, but everybody will know that you got a $20,000 watch. So it's not about telling time, it's about something else, prestige, whatever it is.

My point is not to condemn any of that. My point is to say, verse four is alive and well. No soldier in active duty entangles themselves in the affairs of everyday life. These are all entanglements. A house needs all of the things that go with it. So you need to be single-minded, focused.

The Disciplined Athlete

And then it's like the athlete who competes, and he competes in compliance with the rules. First Corinthians 9:24, Paul tells us that in Corinth, the athletes competed and went into strict training, and they do it to get a crown that will not last. In the Corinthian games, you sign a contract that said that for six months prior to the games, you would adhere to a certain nutritionist regimen and training regimen.

So when Sandy ran the other day, there's 30,000 of them. The first few are winners. You know you're good when your bib number is your name. You're good then. The gal who won the half marathon, there's no way she weighs 85 pounds. She's about this high, her legs are like my arms, and she was fast. An hour nine, she ran it. And so there's an honor that goes with it.

But when I got there, there were literally pallets of boxes, and they were pulling out ribbons that said San Diego half marathon or marathon 2014. And everybody, everybody got a prize. And Paul said, we train, and I know Sandy, we train hard to get that prize, but he said those of us who are followers of Christ, we need to run in such a way and train in such a way, be disciplined in such a way that we're going to get that prize, kind of the equivalent of well done, good and faithful servant. He's not saying don't run marathons, he's just saying that doesn't possibly compare to this.

So where you're spending your time and your energy, your heart, your money, that's who has your passion. And the farmer is a hardworking individual who certainly is worthy of a share of his crops.

The Need for Long-Term Thinking

So here you go. In this world, it is a difficult world. Don't be entangled in all of those things that will pull you back. And to do that, you're going to have to be focused, and you're going to have to be disciplined, and you're going to have to be dedicated. I'm going to put all those together and bundle them under the package. You're going to have to have long term thinking.

You're going to have to pursue delayed gratification. You're going to have to think beyond today. And then he closes out this section in verse 7, consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything.

Here's the key, verse 8, another imperative. Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to the gospel. And that which I suffer, hardship even to imprisonment as a criminal, but the word of God is not in prison. For this reason, I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, that they also might obtain the salvation, which is in Christ Jesus, and with it, eternal glory.

He said there's the ultimate motivation.

A Walk in Coronado

The race in San Diego was Sunday, Monday. Typically what we do in Coronado when we're there is Sandy gets up and goes and runs. She has a track that's six miles, it's like once around the island, she makes a couple zigs and zags. Once she gets up, I get up and make coffee and watch the news, though I'm never going to see anything on it, and do a little reading. And then she'll come in, I'll have some tea, I'll make hot water and tea, she likes tea when she's done. And she'll drink a pot of tea, and then we'll go for a walk.

And so our walks consist of walking down that boardwalk in front of the Dell. There's two benches right into the Dell, try to get one of them, and then we sit for, oh, a half hour, 45 minutes, and try to make fun of the people that walk by, which is actually pretty easy to do, and write our own story, and where do you think, what year do you think she bought that, and he has to be an engineer, and all the stuff that goes with it.

In the process of all of this, we are evaluating and looking at people, we are trying to rest and relax, but we need to understand that God has put us there for a time of recreation, but in the midst of that, He's called us even to use that time for His glory. Hard to do when you're making fun of people, so I have to tell her, quit it, and try to reel her in and say, you can't just keep mocking these people, but those are people that if they don't know Christ, spend eternity separated from Him forever, and even life there.

The Problem We Take With Us

If you're in Coronado and unhappy, you've got some serious issues, that's like a 10-year-old kid going to Disneyland and being miserable, I mean, you've got problems, and it's those things that you see, the unhappiness in Coronado is everywhere, as people walk around and talk and the way they treat one another, and the way they begin to look at things, and here's what we think, if I can get to Coronado, I'll just be happy, because it's like the adult version of the happiest place on earth, but the problem for us is, when we get there and unpack the bags, we realize we took ourselves with us, and Paul's saying, I want you to understand

That there are entanglements in this world, and they will distract you from your ultimate mission, which is to be a dedicated, disciplined, diligent member of the body of Christ. There are real temptations, and if these aren't in place, that battle you'll lose. Not ultimately, because He who began the good work will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus, but He'll neuter you and make you ineffective.

Paul picks up right there next week with that idea.

Father, thank You for that amazing truth that You have for us. Thank You that You love us, and care for us, and brought us to this place, that You've given us so much. Let us take advantage of it, make the most of it, be men and women who please You, the one who enlisted us. God, thanks for that truth.

We pray for those today who are really hurting, who are struggling, who may be so entrenched with the stuff of this world that they're starting to say, "How do I even get out of it?" God, just give them hope, help them implement a plan. God, let all of us live in a way that people see our good works and glorify You, our Father in heaven. We pray that in Christ's name, amen.