Good Advice

Do you ever find yourself in a place where you wish you could get some good advice? What should I do in this situation, and how should I proceed? Young Timothy, Paul’s assistant, found himself in that place as he tried to deal with some very complicated problems at Ephesus. There were some of his leaders under his authority who had departed from the faith and were teaching heresy. They had stopped preaching Jesus Christ as the center of their message. Timothy was asked to confront them and bring order out of the chaos. At the same time, the Apostle Paul gave him some good advice as to how he should try to live out each day of his life. The advice works for us as it did for Timothy: “But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.   Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Tim 6:11-12).

Paul gave Timothy four commands that can be remembered easily. They are simply Flee, Pursue, Fight, and Take Hold Of. Paul exhorts Timothy to flee any situation that had the appearance of evil, whether it was a religious controversy, materialism, or sexual temptation. Flight is sometimes our best option as it was for Joseph in sexual temptation. Fleeing that moment preserved Joseph’s character.

Secondly, Paul told Timothy what to pursue. He gave him three pairs of pursuits, the first being righteousness and godliness, which is our relationship with God and people. One God does for us, and the other we do for ourselves. Secondly, he told him to pursue faith and love. Without an authentic faith, we will never know God’s love. These two virtues are worth our pursuit. Finally, he told him to pursue endurance with gentleness. What contrasting qualities—one is hard as steel and the other soft as cotton and yet both are needed in our lives. We need to be strong in our convictions and yet gentle in our spirit.

Next, Paul commanded Timothy to Fight. Paul was a fighter, and those who followed him learned to fight the fight of faith. Timothy was being asked to keep his eye on the prize, which is Jesus Christ, and run hard in the race. “Give it all you have, Timothy.”

The last command Paul gave Timothy in this passage is to Take Hold of Eternal Life. We all receive eternal life when we accept Christ as our savior, but we don’t all live as if we have hold of it. That is what Paul is talking about.

What motivates us even more is to know that we are living our lives in the presence of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, “In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Tim 6:13-14).

God’s Provision

How prone we are to worry and fretting. Jesus knows how we are, and he addressed this weakness in his Sermon on the Mount. He encouraged us to not worry about our daily needs, such as what we eat or the clothes we wear. He cited the grass of the field and the lilies and the birds of the air as examples of God’s divine providence. They don’t struggle through every day for their provision. They seem to know they are taken care of. This statement is so powerful: “Are you not much more valuable than they?” I have never seen a beautiful Cardinal bird on the white snow that does not make me think of this statement. I say to myself, “If God takes care of that Cardinal who is so carefree, how much more will he not take care of me?”  Jesus told us that our Heavenly Father knows we need the basic things of life, and he will give them to us in the right time and the right way. Instead of fretting, Jesus said we should, “…seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matt 6:25-34).

Whatever you are going through and whatever need you are facing, the proper response is to trust God to take care of you. He knows your needs, and he has the resources to meet all your needs. Let’s remember that all God’s ways are meaningful. When he sends a storm our way, it is not an accident. When he disciplines us, it is with purpose. Though his ways are far above our finding out, they are the incredible ways in which he is working in our lives. The following story was related by Dr. Bryan Chapell and definitely underscores God’s sovereignty and divine provision for his children.

Missionaries David and Hazel Knowlton claimed these wonderful truths of divine providence in the deserts of Africa when they built a clinic to care for the needs of impoverished people. Initially their building plans were thwarted by the absence of gravel for a needed concrete foundation. Though sand extended for hundreds of miles, gravel was so scarce that local builders treated it like precious stone. After weeks of futile efforts to locate enough gravel for the project, David wandered into the desert one evening praying about his predicament. Shuffling his feet as he contemplated his situation, he struck his toe against a small stone in the sand. He stopped short. What was the rock doing here? He rushed back to the compound for a shovel, pushed away the surface sand, and found gravel!

The next morning David rounded up wheelbarrows and hired workers to take the “worth-their-weight-in-gold pebbles” to the building site. The laborers transported all the gravel they could find—enough for the clinic foundation as well as for the mission quarters and a storehouse.

In future weeks word of the gravel finally spread to neighboring villages. Gravel “prospectors” descended on the site to stake out claims. The government even sent representatives to manage the discovery of the new resource. But no one found any more gravel. Millennia earlier when God created the world, he planted that little pocket of gravel in an ocean of sand for David Knowlton to find for his mission project. Then at just the right time, God exposed those pebbles to encourage a heart, to establish a mission, and to turn back the forces of darkness. Such is the nature of providence.^[i]

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[i] Bryan Chapell, The Wonder of it All, Crossway Books, Wheaton, IL 1999, pp. 85-86