I have kept the faith!

(2Timothy 4:7) “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

To be poured out as a drink offering is what happened to so many devout men of God. The Lord Jesus was cruelly butchered and was marred more than any other man as He paid the price for the sin of mankind. The Apostle Paul’s life spoke of complete sacrifice and it eventually ran its course, he was just about ready to be received into glory and he knew it; “For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2Timothy 4:6-7)

There is much we can learn from these verses, let us then absorb what it teachers. Death and hardship will be the life of a devote Christian, it must be this way, it is what will teach us to walk in the Spirit and it is good for us to have other models that will inspire us to follow their example. This is the jist of what Paul looks to do as he sparked Timothy’s intent by his own hand encouraging him to get on with the task and to preach the gospel. I suppose outside of the Lord Jesus’s suffering one could argue that Paul suffered more than all for the sake of the Gospel.

As humans we have a built in tendency to look to survive, everything teachers us to somehow defeat death. There was a movie of late that was based on actual events. A young man full of adventure looked to climb boulders and explore unknown territory while choosing to do it alone. Then one day he found himself pinned out-of-sight by a huge rock in a gorged for 127 hours, for over five days he was trapped and alone with his thoughts. He was so desperate to live that he eventually found the strength to break his arm and then saw through the flesh of his own arm between the broken bones with a pen-knife. This option obviously seemed better to him than death. He survived and was eventually rescued.

It should be the opposite for the Christian; we should get excited when we see death in that sense as heaven now beckons. The ultimate test of where our allegiance lies. Is it life here on earth or do we really look for our hope to arrive? We all long for the day of the trump of God to sound; “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” (1Thessalonians 4:16-18) – But I wonder if our hope rests in heaven, I know it must! However do we look to escape death above the hope of heaven? It was not so with the Lord Jesus nor with Paul. Look at Paul’s tone; “and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  

    

There are very few pronounced examples like this man and what he learnt to endure through the hardships he faced for the sake of the gospel: - “Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one--I am talking like a madman--with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.” (2Corinthians 11:23-28)

Through it all he eventually arrived at a place where with absolute glee was able to echo these words, “and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  

As I look at this man great example it is very encouraging on the one hand but on the other I see my failures as a Christian magnified, it almost leaves me without hope. What have I had to endure, sure I bare many scars in my body, but all because of my own disobedience. I have lived a life of a “bruised reed” for much of my Christian life. Nevertheless I am not without hope, I am convinced that He who has begun the work in my life will see it through until I eventually open my eyes in heaven and see Him face to face. I cannot begin to explain how I long for that day, words elude me!

The Armenian’s like to drill home the point that a true believer may lose his way and fall by the wayside. I tell you this that if you are truly a child of God and if you have the Spirit of God you will never be cast out and left to rot in some gutter somewhere. We may even like Samson loose both our eyes alone our journey here on earth, but our hair will eventually begin to grow once again as God teaches us even through our disobedience to learn to walk by faith and to eventually find obedience for our lives. I suggest that they would argue the point that Samson did not make it, if we did not have record of His lasting faith in the book of Hebrews. God will never abandon one of His own! We must be confident in His ability to get us home. But there has to be a shift in our understanding, heaven must captivate even fibre in our bodies and souls.

So then it will not only be the strong that will be saved on that day but all who belong to Him, praise the glorious name of Jesus Christ the Lord, our God and King. He will not misplace one of His own, as He is the great Shepherd! And yes I can back this up with doctrine! “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." (John 6:39-40)

Come what may let us hold fast to the confession of our faith.

Signing off

Tyrone