Why in the world did I ever avoid reading it?
Alright, so I've been walking through 1 Timothy (with my lovely new Journal Bible which I love to death) and today there wasn't enough room in the margins for me to write what I was thinking... so I'm blogging it! :)
"But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness." 1 Timothy 6:11There is so much in this one verse!! It's amazing!
At first, Paul says "But as for you, O man of God." Just before this verse Paul was talking about false teachers and those who basically live for the wrong reasons (that is another section that perhaps I should speak about later, because it's got a lot of juice, too). Paul is contrasting Timothy with false teachers, which is a big deal. Apparently, it's fairly easy to live by earthly standards (who would've thought?) and so many teachers fail to truly and genuinely live by God's standards. Yet Timothy is one who could stand strong and live by true faith. Paul is telling Timothy to live differently than the others, to be a better teacher, to live above reproach.
Side note: "To live above reproach" is basically the theme of all of 1 Timothy. Which is awesome.
So Paul contrasts Timothy with other teachers, which is an honor, and therefore we should strive to be contrasted with other believers as well. God calls us to not live by the worlds standards and to not live for our own desires but to live above reproach and to live by God's will. It always makes me so happy when people (in essence) ask: What is it that makes you different? Why don't you seem like a normal person? And the answer is: Because I've got a new life from Jesus Christ, I have the Holy Spirit inside me, and I strive to live by God's standards. These things SHOULD distinguish us from the nonbelievers (but it doesn't always). Therefore:
Lesson 1: Live above the desires of your flesh and live by God's standards so that you may be distinguished from others, therefore bringing glory to God's great name.
Paul then instructs Timothy to "flee from these things." "These things" include (but are not limited too): false teachings, conceit, cravings for controversy, gains of the world that are unnecessary, and greed. Flee these things. That means as soon as you have any intentions of them, get down on your knees and beg God to get rid of them or help you fight them. There's no hope of us fighting these desires alone because they are in our nature, but God has offered us help and rescue from it all. We need to guard our thoughts and our hearts. It's incredibly hard to do with this openly sinful world we live in, but we have to learn how to not dwell on them and fill our thoughts with the holiness of God.
Here's an interesting thing: do you ever feel like you're just weathering the world? That you're just standing there, letting these struggles and sins of the world pass you by as you stand there fighting to resist them? Well, here's a slap: we are instructed to FLEE. God understands that we are weak and stupid, so we can't just take on these temptations: we need to FLEE. Now I'm not saying we should all move to a desert somewhere and live perfect lives (like that could ever be possible anyway) but merely reiterating what I was stating earlier. We're basically, by the grace of God, fleeing from ourselves. We flee by crucifying ourselves to the world. We flee by allowing the Holy Spirit to take over our lives and dwelling on the Lord and praying constantly and living every moment to glorify His name. Obviously we can't literally flee from everything, but we are instructed to avoid these temptations.
God will put us in situations where we are face to face with temptation and sins, and sometimes we are led to flee and sometimes we are led to stay there. Either way, you are to guard yourselves from temptations. So this is where Lesson 2 is found:
Lesson 2: Flee from the temptations of the world by guarding our minds and hearts and by keeping our eyes on God.
Now, let's look at the last half: "Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness."
Does it say: "Stand there and wait for these things to come to you."
Nope.
It says "pursue." PURSUE.
I am so incredibly guilty of standing around waiting for God to make me a better person. It wasn't until this past year of my life that I realized that God wouldn't change me until I tried to change myself. I had to want to live a virtuous life and start trying to live one in order for God to bless my struggles and change me.
It makes sense to pursue righteousness, godliness, steadfastness and gentleness because these are actions and characteristics. But he tell us to pursue faith and love.
Um...what?
How do I pursue faith? How do I pursue love?
So here are my thoughts, which are by no means the ultimate answer (and this applies to everything I say).
You can pursue love (I believe) by practicing love. I've always been told that if you pray for a person, you come to love them. I've also been told that if you love on a person (though you may not actually love them) you will come to love them. So perhaps the intentions here are that you learn how to love, which (by the way) only God can give you. God has shown me day by day how to love all the different sorts of people: brothers, sisters, and nonbelievers. You have to pursue that love. You have to try to love them, live with the intentions of loving them, show them what love is. Then God will bless you with a genuine love for them.
Pursuing faith... this is a difficult one for me to think about. I'm going to give a shout-out to Trey Weise in his blog, because he wrote about a "Faith to Move Mountains" (which was the title of the blog...). In summary, Trey came to the conclusion that the faith to move mountains isn't a solid and doubt-free one, but instead a small faith that even when you are unsure, you still do what God says. Faith is "taking a blind step" as so many have said. Faith is that, even though you may have doubts that what God is telling you makes sense, you do it anyway. So in order to pursue faith, you must strive to obey God at every turn, no matter how much you might not understand why.
Lesson 3: In order to obtain righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness, you must pursue them by living a life in which you practice and live by them.
So to tie it all together: Live a life above reproach that will set you apart from the rest of the world BY guarding your hearts and minds from the temptations of the world AND pursuing qualities that are of God.
Isn't scripture amazing?!
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