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Good Friday to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Frequently I ask you to consider your ability to discern TRUTH in all the information your ears hear and eyes read each day. We live in a time we are OVER informed, and only a tiny fraction of it is reliable, un-distorted TRUTH.
Today I’m asking a different question. . . are you a Strategic Proclaimer of Truth?
Here’s what I mean, my friends:
First, are you a consistent, reliable source of TRUTH as you speak, whenever, wherever you open your mouth?
Second, are you STRATEGIC with your truth? Do you watch for opportunities to engage the conversation and correct, even rebuke when you hear truth distortion?
So, here’s my Life Principle for Friday of this week: “Proclaim God’s Truth Strategically”
Open your copy of the Bible please, in whatever language is your language of best understanding, to Paul’s final letter, 2 Timothy, chapter 4. We’re going to focus today on only the first 5 verses. They are very powerful verses.
“In the presence of God (the Father) and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach (proclaim) the Word…” (2 Tim. 4:1)
It is greatly encouraging for me to know there will be a day of reckoning for every person who has ever lived, and especially those who have been given a platform to teach or verbally influence many people. They will be held to a higher high standard because they influenced others. Listen to this warning from James: “Not many of you should presume to be teachers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.” (James 3:1)
Of course James is speaking about those who teach Spiritual truth, but do you see anything in God’s Word that suggests other teachers are exempt from such accountability… like University professors who deny creation? Or Medical experts who claim a baby in the womb is not yet fully human until birth? Or Media pundits who supposedly give us the ‘news’ of what is happening in our world, but their ‘spin’ distorts the truth? What do you suppose God will do with these “teachers” who have profoundly influenced the minds of millions of people to believe that which is false and opposed to God?
Our guiding Life Principle for today places a very high value on first LEARNING God’s Truth and then PROCLAIMING it with clarity, in view of the fact that God is watching & listening, with an expectation that TRUTH be spoken.
Listen to Paul’s next challenging statement: “Be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage, with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine (truth). Instead to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.”(2 Tim. 4:2-4)
Wow! I think maybe Paul has visited Harvard, or Princeton, or Yale, or every major public University in America, in the past several years. And he has been listening to renowned, respected PHD’s and tenured faculty, some are published, many are chairs of their departments. . . but the liberal, twisted, untruth they proclaim fits exactly the description of Paul, and generations of intelligent young minds have been brainwashed to believe and repeat lies.
But it’s not only the University campus is it my friends? It’s the hallowed halls of Congress, even the White House, and State Capitals. And it’s not only America, it’s London, and Beijing, and Tokyo, and Paris, and Berlin, and Madrid, and every major city in the world. But it’s also churches and mosques and cathedrals!. It’s globally influential businesses too. It’s EVERYWHERE, in every home… and it’s on almost every Television station, and Radio station, and Internet web site. Nearly 15 Billion ears in our world have an insatiable appetite and very, very few are hearing God’s Truth. Oh how Paul’s powerful statement is so true… and it begs several important questions:
1. What filters do you and I have in place to evaluate the legitimacy of EVERYTHING you read or hear?
2. What standard of unchanging, ultimate truth do you have by which you compare everything you hear or read?
3. What do you do with distortion of truth, or outright lies, or manipulative information?
4. How are you teaching your children and grandchildren to identify and reject WRONG information?
5. Finally, what do you do with the sources of consistently distorted or wrong information?
Do you see in the verses we’ve looked at so far that Paul challenges Timothy to Proclaim truth, to correct, rebuke and instruct when falseness is being spewed? Finally listen to this from Paul: “But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”(2 Tim. 4:5) Oh my! Have you witnessed the power of mob thinking, or peer pressure? Do you hear Paul admonishing Timothy to stand fast in every distorting, confusing, deceitful, heretical situation. So easily most people are swayed by emotional, passionate communicators, even if what they are shouting is totally wrong. Can you “keep your head in all situations”, my friends?
Do the work of an evangelist, of course means… draw people to encounter Jesus and His truth! “Evangel” is the good news of Jesus, the Gospel! “EvangelIST is a person who proclaims Jesus and His truth fearlessly and with influence, anointed by the Holy Spirit of God!
Ok, so what are the keys to accomplishing what Paul is challenging Timothy to live in these verses? May I give you these:
1. First, you can’t proclaim truth that you don’t know! Therefore it is absolutely essential you have a voracious appetite for God’s Truth, and you daily fill your mind and heart with God’s truth. You must intake MORE of God’s truth than the contrary information you take in, if you are going to know His truth well enough to counter the false information flood. So what is your truth intake pattern?
2. Second, you must FILTER known distorted information sources, severely restricting the access of that dis-information to your heart and mind. Your sinful nature hungers for bad news, untruth, God dishonoring information. Be very careful about allowing that junk into your heart and mind. Counter it with God’s Truth. If you don’t it will take root in you causing you to doubt God’s truth!
3. Engage the conversation, don’t hide from it! Seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit for injecting God’s truth into our world of great confusion and confronting confident communicators who spew untruth. Equip yourself for this courageous engagement. Research, do your due-diligence, seek the teaching of those who you trust and who can help you understand God’s perspective on the issues. May I once again urge you to consider Dr. Albert Mohler, as one of the most effective communicators of Biblical truth in response to current events. His books and his ‘Daily Briefing’ podcast are excellent and very helpful to equip you for knowing God’s truth, thinking Biblically and engaging the current distortions.
Speak up, challenge the deceit, the lies, the distortions with God’s truth. As you engage, you’ll develop intellectual muscles which are spiritually anointed and the Holy Spirit will defeat the encroaching darkness all around you.
My “Walking with Jesus” friends, think for a moment what difference all of us, who are followers of Jesus could make in our world if we Proclaim God’s Truth Strategically and help our children and grandchildren understand how to do the same!
Can Jesus count on you and me to do this…starting TODAY?
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Click to read today’s chapter: 2 Timothy 4:1-5. (At the top you can choose a different translation.)
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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