But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, and you know that from childhood you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:14-17 — Holman Christian Standard Bible)
Paul the apostle encourages Timothy, a young pastor, to continue in the godly teaching he received all through childhood. His mother Eunice and grandmother Lois had taught him all about the sacred Scriptures. Their lives and the lives of other people of faith, combined with the Word of God to create a strong faith in Timothy.
God’s Word and the Holy Spirit are essential for salvation and any other change we want. Without the Spirit, God’s Word has no life or power. But when the two are combined God’s Word becomes a life changing force inside of any one of us. It is a living and active force.
Paul emphasizes the source of all Scripture: God. Inspired literally means “God-breathed”. True, the various books of the Bible were actually written by men, but Paul explains that God was actively involved in the revelation of His truth and ideas to those who wrote it down. The Bible we hold in our hands was written by God Himself. He is its Author, not man. So whenever we read the Bible we can be sure that those words are true and eternal, and if obeyed, will bring about fruit.
Scripture teaches us what is right, true, and godly. The most important part of the Bible is the New Testament because it contains the revelation of the Lord Jesus and how we are to follow Him. No one can hope to be a strong Christian without reading the Bible every day, or at least daily meditation on it. It teaches, rebukes, corrects, and trains in righteousness. It makes us complete; it equips us for anything as long as we understand the link between knowing the Word and applying it to our lives.
As He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath, a woman was there who had been disabled by a spirit for over 18 years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called out to her, “Woman, you are free of your disability.” Then He laid His hands on her, and instantly she was restored and began to glorify God… But the Lord answered… “Satan has bound this woman, a daughter of Abraham, for 18 years — shouldn’t she be untied from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” (Luke 13:10-16 — Holman Christian Standard Bible)
This true story shows the stark contrast between the work of God and the work of Satan. Demons had attacked this woman’s spine causing such severe curvature that she could not stand up straight for 18 years— imagine the limitations that this disability must have caused her. In those times preparing food and washing clothes was a full time job for a woman because there were no appliances, no machinery, no refrigeration, and no stores with ready-made food. Everything was done by hand. She may even been single because no man wanted to marry her. But whatever the case, her life was hell for those 18 years all because an evil spirit decided to make her suffer.
Why do demons attack people? What benefit do they derive from it? The Bible doesn’t give many explanations, but one thing we do know is that Satan asked for permission to attack Job simply to turn him against God. Demons attack because they enjoy seeing people suffer — they feed off of suffering — but they also enjoy hurting God by trying to drive a wedge between Him and people. But amazingly, the woman in this story was found in a synagogue where we assume she came to pray to and worship God in spite of her suffering, and Jesus used a term for her that is not recorded anywhere else in the Bible: daughter of Abraham. By saying this He meant that she was a true woman of faith, since Abraham is the father of faith.
How could she be oppressed by a demon and be a child of Abraham? How could a faithful member of a synagogue (then) or church (today) be possessed by a demon? The fact is, it happened then and it happens today. Believing in God and attending church does not guarantee a perfect life or even freedom from demons and Satan. We have to put on the full armor of God and fight the good fight if we want to defeat demons and be immune from their attacks. When we don’t, the unnatural circumstance of being a possessed believer can and will occur. Clearly, from Jesus response, “Woman, you are free from your disability”, this is not God’s will. God’s power is available, we just have to use it.
Don’t make the dangerous mistake of thinking that this doesn’t happen today. It does. Demons are attacking people just like in the time of Jesus (30% of His miracles involved casting out demons), and we have the same authority that Jesus had. If we speak the same way, and have the same faith, we will get the same results as the Lord Jesus. And when we choose not to follow Jesus’ example, we find ourselves in the miserable inconsistency of believing in a big God but not seeing His power in our lives. Unless we cast out demons like our Lord did, our lives will always be limited.
Take a stand and use your authority.
The Lord is good and upright; therefore He shows sinners the way. He leads the humble in what is right and teaches them His way. All the Lord’s ways show faithful love and truth to those who keep His covenant and decrees. (Psalm 25:8-10 — Holman Christian Standard Bible)
Too many go through life thinking God is against them, that He continually finds fault, or that He is waiting for an opportunity to punish. This passage says the opposite — it says God is good and upright. It even says that He shows sinners the way. Whenever those negative thoughts about God come we can be sure it is the devil trying to drive a wedge between us and God, to shake our confidence in Him. In those moments we have to remember verses like this and hold on to our faith. If we don’t… if we give in to these negative thoughts they will turn us against God and make our faith ineffective.
“Way” is mentioned three times in this passage. In fact, before the term Christianity was ever used, people in the 1st century called followers of Jesus “The Way”. In another passage Jesus says that He is the way, the truth, and the life. This is an important concept throughout the Bible. We have all chosen a path, a way to live — our own or God’s, away from God or toward Him. If we choose God’s way we can be sure it will be a hard, difficult road involving sacrifice. His ways go against the ways of the world, and even our own natural way of living. But if we’re ready to admit that our way of doing things is wrong, that we need help, God will rush into our lives and make them what they could never be otherwise.
God is looking for humble, obedient people who will choose His way over all others. Decide that this is who you are.
For me, living is Christ and dying is gain. Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me; and I don’t know which one I should choose. I am pressured by both. I have the desire to depart and be with Christ — which is far better — but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you. (Philippians 1:21-24 — Holman Christian Standard Bible)
As far as he was concerned, life or death, earth or heaven, Paul could not choose between the two. This is a very unusual attitude for people in the world, no one wants to die, everyone wants to live as long as they can. But it was truly a toss up for Paul. Dying would be better because he would be in heaven with God, but staying on earth would also be good because the Philippian church, and others, needed his help. This is the attitude of a mature, saved child of God. Because we are in God’s hands — life or death — it’s all the same. Either way we are with God.
Paul felt the pressure of both. He longed to be with His Father in heaven. He wrote “I have the desire to depart” — a tentmaker by profession we could say that Paul viewed death as simply packing up his tent and moving on, from earth to heaven, continuing his life there. But he also had a burning desire to save the lost. He was in prison at the time — in chains and watched by guards — which must have been a constant reminder of how many people were still held captive and oppressed by the devil, prisoners to their own fleshly desires, needing help.
All of us should have the same attitude. If we don’t, we should question our commitment and belief in God. When we do not copy Paul’s attitude something would have to be wrong with our faith and relationship with God. This life on earth is not all there is; it’s not even the best part. Life on earth is a test, and the reward is heaven. God wants to know if we will choose Him, and if we do we will be welcomed into heaven for eternity. Anyone who holds on to their life on earth, valuing it more than heaven, is shortsighted.
When God chooses to take us home, we should be glad. And as long as He keeps us here on earth, we should also be glad to save more souls and develop a deeper relationship with Him.
But you, brothers, are not in the dark, for this day to overtake you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or the darkness. So then, we must not sleep, like the rest, but we must stay awake and be serious. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, we must be serious and put the armor of faith and love on our chests, and put on a helmet of the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Thessalonians 5:4-9 — Holman Christian Standard Bible)
The day of the Lord will come as a terrible shock to those who belong to the dark, while those who belong to the light will not be taken by surprise because they look forward to and expect it. The fact that the Lord Jesus could come at any moment should motivate unbelievers to turn to God, and believers to hold firmly to their faith.
Paul challenges us to go against the current of this world by not falling asleep or getting drunk like everyone else. We are to stay awake and be sober. There is a sleep and a drunkenness that is spiritual and deadens people to the reality of God, the sting of sin, the foolishness of the decisions they make, and the truth of God’s word. We’ve known people who say their vision is clearer and colors are brighter after a strong deliverance prayer — or that they feel like they’ve woken up from a dream and can finally live a normal life. When we have Jesus living inside of us it’s impossible to live in the dark.
Paul mentions God’s triple in this passage, three qualities that are spoken of at various places in Scripture: faith, hope, and love. These qualities are indispensable for anyone that wants to please God. Faith stimulates us to act on God’s promises, hope generates confidence in the future and in the genuineness of God’s promises, and love connects us to God and motivates our obedience to Him. Faith is like the 100 meter dash. It’s fast. It’s designed to win victories. On the other hand hope is like a marathon. It grows gradually, but keeps on growing, little by little throughout our lives. Heaven is a hope, so is the eventual salvation of our entire family. Hope is what makes us stable. But when it comes to love, the Bible says it is the greatest. Not a wimpy, gushy love, but a love like Jesus had that gave Him the strength to go to the cross for humanity, and win its salvation.
Decide right now that you will stay awake and be sober, and that you have not been born to suffer the wrath of God, but to enjoy the salvation of the Lord Jesus.
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God…… Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self. (Colossians 3:1-10 — New American Standard Version)
The apostle Paul makes the intelligent argument that if we say we’ve been raised up with Christ, we ought to live it out in practical ways. In the early church, like today, there were people who talked about their faith in God and how they had been raised up to live a new life, but weren’t doing it — it wasn’t apparent to the people around them. Then he went on to list various things that he noticed were creeping into the lives of people who professed a real faith in Jesus: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed, anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy language, and lies. Paul lived 2000 years ago, but it’s as if he has his finger on the pulse of today’s world because everything on that list is a serious problem for people today.
When Paul says “set” your minds on things above, the Greek communicates a continual act not a one time thing, a continual choice that we have to make every day. We can’t tire of setting our minds on things above, assume that we’re so mature that it’s unnecessary, or think that we can ignore it and not feel the effect. We have to keep reminding ourselves of the importance of the things above — salvation, life after death, heaven, God, the Holy Spirit, the name of Jesus, our authority — and downplay the importance of the things on earth. Like Paul says, we should consider ourselves dead to the world.
If we have genuine faith in God the world no longer dictates the way we think and live because our lives are “hidden with Christ in God”. It doesn’t say that God will hide our lives, but that they are hidden — it’s something that has already been accomplished. In other words, when we have faith and are making an effort to follow and obey the Lord Jesus, we are protected, hidden with Jesus, we have God Almighty’s protection. So we should not look at that list of wrongs, and even things that aren’t on that list, with the attitude that we’re only human, and getting rid of certain things is too hard. No. If we are hidden in Christ we have the power to do it.
Paul is challenging us to die to the old self whose master is Satan, and be raised up as a new self with a new master, the Spirit of God inside of us. — Accept his challenge.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:16,17 — New American Standard Bible)
Why would anyone be ashamed of the gospel? Not only is it a story about things that happened two thousand years ago in another corner of the world that seems so far, it is a story that demands a response. No one can read about Jesus’ life, teaching, healing, and miracles and come away impressed with how “nice” a story it is. Either it’s a pack of lies designed to deceive, or it is God’s personal message to each one of us. Either Jesus was a liar or madman, or He was God on earth. The gospel makes such bold statements about Jesus and the necessity of His death on the cross that no one who takes the time to understand it can remain neutral.
In another passage Paul writes that this message is foolishness to Gentiles and a stumbling block to Jews. The Jews of Jesus’ time were expecting their savior to be a version of King David riding into Jerusalem with an army to free them from their Roman oppressors, and a Savior dying a criminal’s death on a cross was a blasphemous contradiction. Why would anyone believe in a god that couldn’t save himself from cruel men? But what they failed to understand was that Jesus’ death and suffering made the opposite possible for those who choose to believe in Him.
CS Lewis in his book, Mere Christianity, has a nice way of putting it:
“God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.”
Without faith in God and the gospel there is a void in the core of our being. How can we be ashamed of a gospel that fills that void and makes us complete? Those who stubbornly hold on to that void as if it were something good should be the ones who are ashamed.
Far from being ashamed, we are proud of the privilege of being God’s children.
