in second Timothy, Paul encourages Timothy to be bold for the sake of the gospel to glorify God, for that is the main thing, a primary purpose of every Christian.
My primary purpose is to glorify God by living and sharing the good news of Jesus’s Christ’s gospel by properly thinking, passionately loving and diligently serving God and His people from, in and through the power of His Holy Spirit. – Me
2 Timothy is Paul’s last written book to his beloved adopted son in the faith. In it, he writes these mighty words:
“for God gave us a spirit not of fear
2 Timothy 1:7 ESV
but of power and love and self-control.”
If we break this passage down, we gather:
God gave us… He gives graciously, abundantly and unexpectedly, at times…sometimes what we perceive as blessings and sometimes challenges but His intent is always for our good.
A spirit… He gives. He gives is presence, attitude and invisible fortitude.
Not of fear… He is clearly referencing the timid shrink-back false fear. For fear, like love, has different meanings (meanings of fear and love). He doesn’t want is to have the false or timid fear the devil likes to use.
but of power… Power is courage. Power is energy, impact, drive, and boldness.
and love… Love is what empowers and encourages us like nothing else. Love is the core of God’s essence therefore Jesus shared command #1 and #2
Paul and also wrote:
But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that He is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.
2 Timothy 1:12b
Paul knows God. He has an active relationship and communes with Him. Paul thoroughly believes in God through thick and thin. He knows that God has got his back in the ‘here and now’ and the ‘forever’. Nothing can snatch and forcefully remove is because God has got us.
Yet, we are entrusted to keep the faith and simply believe.
Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 1:13-14
By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.
On the flip side, by trusting in the Holy Spirit, we are guard the good.
Do you see the dynamic interplay. It’s not our power or our means because God does the heavy lifting and guarding yet we have our role and responsibility.
Salvation – God’s work activated by our response to His love in action. Apart from God’s intervention, our salvation is impossible. Without faith, it is also impossible. Are role is to simply receive and believe.
Sanctification – God’s work in us via the Holy Spirit which matures and takes us from salvation to glorification.
Glorification – God’s deliverance of our souls into His presence so that our metamorphosis is complete as a butterfly 🦋 transforms from caterpillar 🐛 in a cocoon to this beautiful flying