DO THE HEAVY LIFTING. 2 Peter 3:15-16; 2 Timothy 2:15.

Do you agree with these principles?

  1. If God is real, nothing you will ever do in life matters more than knowing him.
  2. If there is any area of life that deserves serious attention, study, and your hardest work, it is learning everything you can about God. (Can you name anything more worthy of your attention?)
  3. God the Creator is a person of infinite genius. His creation is practically infinite. You could spend a thousand lifetimes discovering the beauty, mystery, glory, and love that God puts into everything He does.
  4. Therefore, if God has surrounded us with His amazing creation, His own infinite being, and His incredible Word that explains both, HOW CAN WE BE LAZY ABOUT STUDYING both His creation and His word?

–Yet, most Christians prefer sermons that skim the surface and never get deep.

We get nervous when we hear words like “doctrine,” or “eschatology.” We want preachers to tell good stories and make us feel inspired, but we don’t want to think too much. We want to sing songs about our feelings, not hymns filled with life-changing words about God’s amazing qualities.

Ask yourself this simple question: does church remind you more of a rock concert or a university classroom? Perhaps there is a place for both. But if church doesn’t remind you of a classroom at least once in a while, you may be in the wrong church. Peter and Paul wrestled with deep topics. Peter writes about Paul’s epistles:

“Our dear brother Paul has written to you according to the wisdom given to him. He speaks about these things in all his letters in which there are some matters that are hard to understand” 2 Peter 3:15-16.

Peter ADMITS there are some matters in Paul’s writings that are hard to understand.

But does Peter say it’s okay to give up? No. He assumes his audience will work to figure it out, telling them to “grow in the grace AND KNOWLEDGE of Jesus Christ” 2 Peter 3:18.

“Study to show thyself approved unto God, rightly interpreting the Word” 2 Timothy 2:15.

In other words, DO THE HEAVY LIFTING. Don’t be lazy about Bible study.

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CHINA OR EVERYDAY? 2 Timothy 2:20-22.

One day at the home of my mother-in-law, we noticed she had stacked dozens of dishes on her kitchen counter. Apparently one of her grandchildren had asked for some dishes!

The interesting thing about dishes is that they come in two types: “China” and “Everyday.” Lots of couples choose dishes for their wedding registry, and friends shower them with butter dishes, chargers, creamers, and gravy boats, some for everyday use, some for special use. A busy family’s kitchen is diverse—you may have paper plates, reusable plastic, your original “Everyday” dishes, and a mis-matched hodgepodge of Southern Living at Home, Fiesta, Blue Willow, and fancy China.

Paul uses this variety of dishes as a metaphor:

“Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver bowls, but also those of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable [chamberpots]. So if anyone purifies himself from anything dishonorable, he will be a special instrument, set apart, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work. So flee from youthful passions….” 2 Timothy 2:20-22.

Have you ever wondered what sets people apart? Why two with similar skills, talents, and gifts may live such different lives? I have often wondered whether the difference was sin. Just as a bowl that could have held delicacies for a king is transformed into something else after one use as a chamberpot, so a heart harboring sin can cause someone to live a different life than he might have otherwise.

But Paul argues it is not too late: “If anyone purifies himself from the dishonorable, he will be a special instrument, set apart, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work” 2 Timothy 2:21.

I believe if we will purify our lives, cleaning out the “dishonorable,” God will bless us and use us for “every good work.” I don’t know about you, but I would rather be the king’s wine goblet than his chamberpot!

May God help us take purity seriously! I am going to start by making these verses my next memory verse.

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Give the Word the Benefit of the Doubt. 2 Timothy 2:15.

God saved you, right? He made you, loves you, forgives you, died for you, correct? No one loves you the way He loves you.

And what tool does He give you to get through the daily challenges of life? His Word. His written record of truth and answers and solutions. It’s all in there: the greatest treasure we possess. Don’t miss the chance to discover that treasure. Mine it. Dig out the gold, the jewels, the rubies and riches.

And here’s the principle I want you to think about:

GIVE HIS WORD THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT.

Some things are timeless, such as “thou shalt not murder” Exodus 20:13. Other things are cultural or have limited application, such as “don’t eat fish without scales” Leviticus 11:9-12.

But here’s the thing. God loves you and He knows how to put a book like the Bible together. So give Him the benefit of the doubt. When you read things in the Bible, assume He means it for today, that is, assume it is TIMELESS until you have done so much serious study that you are certain the passage has a limited application to ancient Israel.

Because of who God is, His word deserves THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT. Always assume that what you read applies to you RIGHT NOW. Never say, “oh, that’s just a rule for back then,” unless you have studied the matter so thoroughly that you could stand before the throne of a holy God, look up at His face glowing like fire, and say, “Yes, Lord, I studied the Word and am convinced this rule was a cultural thing, and does not apply today, and here’s why.”

We are instructed to “study to show thyselves approved unto God, a workman who need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 2 Timothy 2:15.

Until you have studied the Word that thoroughly, you must give God the benefit of the doubt. Always take it at face value and believe and obey what it says. If you think it does not apply today, study the word so well you can prove it—or keep obeying the word as it is. Those are your only choices.

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FAMILY RESEMBLANCE. 2 Timothy 1:3-5.

This picture generated with AI.

We are family–each person begins life as part of a family. We inherit traits from our parents. But shouldn’t we focus on today and forget the past? Does ancestry matter?

YES. The Bible contains over 25 genealogies, and while readers often skim them, God put them there for a reason.

Genealogies prove:

1) God LOVES families,

2) He was in control of your destiny—generations before your birth, and

3) God can use ANYONE. Jesus’ ancestry included Rahab the harlot, David (who committed adultery and murder), Ruth the Moabite, and more.

Knowing your ancestry does not mean pretending everyone was perfect. It means seeing God’s grace work through fallen people.

And just as you inherit physical traits such as height, weight, and eye color, you also inherit spiritual traits. If your forebears were givers, you may have the gift of giving. If they were preachers, God may make you a preacher. Paul explains this to Timothy, speaking not only of Paul’s ancestors, but of Timothy’s:

“I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience AS MY ANCESTORS DID, when I remember you in my prayers night and day…. clearly recalling your SINCERE FAITH THAT FIRST LIVED IN YOUR GRANDMOTHER LOIS, THEN IN YOUR MOTHER EUNICE, AND THAT I AM CONVINCED IS IN YOU ALSO” 2 Timothy 1:3-5.

Paul knows Timothy’s family well, and recognizes in Timothy the faith he saw in Timothy’s mother and grandmother. Clearly spiritual traits can be passed from parent to child.

And that should give us wisdom. If you are looking for God’s plan for your life, look at God’s plan for your ancestors’ lives. Yours will be different, of course. But it may employ similar skills.

I once wrote down the occupations of every member of my family living or dead, going back generations. Of those whose occupations I knew, a full 50%—HALF OF THEM—were teachers. That was staggering to me. And guess what? My primary spiritual gift is the gift of teaching. You too may find guidance in your ancestry.

(And for the person who does not know their ancestry, consider the high priest Melchizedek. The book of Hebrews reports on this man “having no [known] father or mother” (Hebrews 7:3) and compares him to no less a hero than Jesus Himself.)

God, in His Grace, can miraculously use even those with NO known ancestry.

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Inherited Faith. 2 Timothy 1:5.

Yesterday I found a copy of a detailed family tree that I thought was lost. It goes back nine generations! It is mostly Germans, Brits, and a single line of Frenchmen. Most common vocations? Teachers, farmers, lawyers, and business owners.

I suppose you can inherit leadership and the gift of gab. I’m sure you can inherit a talent for teaching. But can you inherit faith? At first, the answer may seem to be No. Each person must choose Christ for himself. But 2 Timothy has an interesting passage. Paul writes:

“For I am mindful of the sincere faith within you, which first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am sure that it is in you as well” 2 Timothy 1:5.

Paul believes that the faith he sees in Timothy is the same faith he saw in the young man’s mother and grandmother. I like that idea—because my kids come from a long line of faith. Many great and faithful men and women of God have gone before. Each had a crisis of belief, and chose to walk by faith and believe His word. Sure, there have been a few failures, but the majority have loved and served Jesus. Sometimes I look at my two kids and see in them the faith of their parents and grandparents.

The key in this verse may be that Paul describes Timothy’s faith as “sincere.” Is your faith sincere? Take that sincere and honest faith, the faith that comes from you being REAL, and build on that.

Pray, obey, read, and study the word. Grow in Christ. Cultivate faith, belief, and TRUST. Put aside doubt, skepticism, and mocking. Choose to love God and trust Him.

Now, how do you serve Him? It’s not about gifts. Just a few verses later Paul says if you purify yourself, God can use you.

“If anyone purifies himself from anything dishonorable, he will be a special instrument, set apart, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work” 2 Timothy 2:21.

So that’s all it takes—purify yourself, and God will use you as a special instrument. But I know that’s not so easy. Your ancestors in the faith did not have smart phones or even TVs, or so many other things. But don’t kid yourself—they had choices. They had temptations. And many of them purified themselves, walked with God, and raised their children in the faith. May we do the same.

May we be worthy of the ones who have gone before us.

Dear God, make us faithful. Help us love you and choose faith. Help us to purify ourselves so we can be “special instruments” for you. Teach us to drop the doubts and to choose faith. Help us to “walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,” and worthy of the “great cloud of witnesses surrounding us” Hebrews 12:1. Give us an extra measure of the faith of our ancestors. Help us purify ourselves so we can be special instruments for you. Use us in any way you choose. We give our lives to you!

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The Death Penalty: Pros and Cons. Numbers 35.

The death penalty is controversial, but it is not unbiblical. The United States is not ancient Israel. We do not enforce the 613 laws of the Old Testament, nor should we. We pick and choose among them, using them only as guidance and a role model. We clearly do not follow dietary laws, sanitation rules, or even the Old Testament tort laws embodied by the phrase, “an eye for an eye.” Instead we pay for lost eyesight with monetary damages. Similarly, we are under no Biblical orders to exactly follow the Old Testament law on capital punishment. But because it is in the Bible, it remains worthy of our consideration.

Some arguments against the death penalty: As it is practiced in the U.S., capital punishment is not the deterrent it once was—death may be delayed by twenty years of appeals. Criminals know that and are (presumably) less afraid to commit capital crimes. “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil” Ecclesiastes 8:11.

In addition, the years of appeals are paid for by the taxpayers, so the death penalty is actually many times more expensive than life imprisonment. (Think of that–it costs more money to execute a man than to lock him up and feed him for fifty years.) There is also the small but not-insignificant risk that an innocent man might be put to death. Believing it to be “cruel and unusual punishment, ” or at best, “uncivilized,” many nations have simply abolished the death penalty.

Yet, there are also arguments in favor of the death penalty: To begin, the U.S. Supreme Court has restricted the death penalty to murder cases only. We no longer hang horse thieves.

Second, you might argue the U.S. is “modest” in its use of the death penalty because there are nations that put more people to death than the United States, including North Korea, Vietnam, Syria, Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, and others. China executes many thousands every year, putting to death more people than the rest of the world combined. (Sadly, this is not a convincing statistic–what civilized nation would proudly compare itself to China, North Korea, or Syria?)

A more persuasive argument is that the states have safeguards in place to ensure innocent people are not put to death. For example, in addition to providing free appeals to the convicted, our system cannot execute those guilty of “only” murder. Most capital cases must be what lawyers call “murder plus.” That is, a murder alone will not result in a death sentence. Criminals must be convicted of committing a murder while in the commission of an additional felony, such as murder plus rape, or murder plus robbery.

Another argument is that some criminals are so dangerous that the death penalty can appear to be the only way to ensure the public’s safety. Finally, it can be unsatisfying to know your child is dead but his murderer is in prison watching TV in the day room. Sometimes victims deserve the justice that only the grave can give.

In my opinion, there are valid arguments on both sides.

Consider what God told Moses about murder in Numbers 35:

“Do not defile the land where you are, for bloodshed defiles the land and there can be no atonement for the land because of the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of the person who shed it” Numbers 35:33.

BLOODSHED DEFILES THE LAND.

That sounds serious to me. Murder soils the land. It pollutes it. If our nation tolerates murder, our land will become defiled. Perhaps a wise and merciful use of the death penalty is exactly what God expects of a righteous nation.

It is interesting that the shedding of blood dishonors the land, and only the shedding of blood can restore it.

Our hearts are the same way. Our sin defiles us. Only the shed blood of Christ can atone for us.

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Thoughts on the New Year. Psalm 90.

Have you ever been moved by time? It is staggering. NASA says the star Earendel is 28 billion light years from earth, meaning the light has traveled 28 billion years to reach us. But God has been seated on His throne LONGER than that. He is the Almighty. Nothing in our world surprises Him. No problem in your life is too hard for Him. We debate: is time linear, a straight line from Creation to Final Judgment, or cyclical, an endless repetition of circles like winter, spring, summer, and fall? I say both: a straight line made of circles, like the telephone cords we had in our kitchens in the 1980s.

The point is, time is HUGE, beyond our comprehension. But God is beyond time. He never changes. “Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever” Hebrews 13:8.

Slowly read the words of the hymn “O God, Our Help in Ages Past,” a paraphrase of Psalm 90 by Isaac Watts:

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home;

Under the shadow of thy throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is thine arm alone,
And our defense is sure.

Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.

A thousand ages in thy sight
Are like an evening gone,
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.

Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.

O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.

GO INTO THE YEAR WITH COURAGE!

Remember: “there is nothing NEW under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). God has foreseen it all, and He is KING. He will take care of you!

FACE THE NEW YEAR WITH CONFIDENCE IN THE GOD WHO IS SOVEREIGN EVEN OVER TIME ITSELF.

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CORRELATION. Hebrews 12: 5-11.

Correlation. n. A statistical measure of the degree in which two variables move in relation to each other.

There are correlations between freezing temperatures and snow on the ground, between hard work and achievement, selfishness and loneliness, kindness and optimism.

Several powerful correlations involve everyone’s favorite topic: DISCIPLINE. There are correlations between parental love and discipline, between parental discipline and children’s self-discipline, between parents’ discipline and children’s success, between parents’ self-discipline and their ability to discipline children, and (SURPRISE!) between discipline and JOY.

It’s true—discipline leads to joy. And lack of discipline leads to disappointment.

God disciplines us too. He disciplines me by keeping me on a short leash. Some seem to get away with everything. I feel like I get away with nothing. But it keeps me from going astray. God’s discipline is an expression of HIS LOVE. Be thankful for it!

“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by Him, for whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. … God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? … And you respected your earthly father’s discipline—how much more should you be subject to the Father of spirits and live? … All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. But afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” Hebrews 12: 5-11.

Have you met children without discipline? I’ve seen a few so out-of-control it had become a handicap. The lack of discipline was crippling them in every area: relationships with peers and adults, academics, growth, maturity. To meet an undisciplined child is deeply disturbing, because you can see the destruction ahead, but they cannot. And without discipline, they are powerless to prevent it; their life has no brakes.

Welcome God’s discipline. And—STOP AND THINK HARD ON THIS:

The Old Testament is not about judgment. It’s about DISCIPLINE. God is desperate to guide and shape Israel’s destiny. He disciplines them (and you) out of LOVE!

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Hard Work Leads to Success. Hebrews 12:11

Self-discipline always pays off. It comes with its own rewards, whether dieting, sports, studying, or spiritual disciplines. Think about that as you begin a new year, a new semester in school, or simply a new week.

If you are a student–or NOT a student–the discipline of reading and studying and turning off the TV and phone will pay off. (Yes, you can silence the phone. You will survive.)

“All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruits of righteousness.” Hebrews 12:11.

I memorized the wording above long ago. But I also like the NIV translation:

“No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

If you let discipline and hard work train you, you will experience great success!

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THE ROLL CALL OF THE FAITHFUL. Hebrews 11:2-38.

Are you familiar with Hebrews 11? Hebrews 11 is known as “the Faith Chapter” for its litany of people who lived by faith—people whose lives should inspire us. It is one of the great chapters of the Bible that everyone should know. It begins with a definition of faith: “the reality of what is hoped for, the evidence of things unseen” Hebrews 11:1.

Then the writer lists those who have lived out their faith:

“By faith, our ancestors won God’s approval…

By faith we understand God made the universe…

By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain.

By faith he was approved…

By faith Enoch was taken and did not see death….

By faith Noah….

By faith Abraham….

By faith even Sarah….

By faith Isaac….

By faith Jacob…. Joseph…. Moses…. The Israelites…. Rahab….

And what more can I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets, who by faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, obtained promises, shut the mouths of lions, quenched the raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword…. Became mighty in battle, put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead, others were tortured, not accepting their release…. They were stoned, sawn in two… afflicted, mistreated, men of whom the world was not worthy….” Hebrews 11:2-38.

Are you discouraged? Do you need faith? Read Hebrews 11! These people’s lives will inspire you to conquer any obstacle you are facing, as long as you are facing it with faith.

And chapter 12 offers the only wise conclusion:

“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us [cheering us on!], let us lay aside every weight and the sins which so easily entangle us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfector of the faith….” Hebrews 12:1-2.

Be inspired by those who’ve gone before, fix your eyes on Jesus, and run with FAITH!

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