Pick your battles!

My greatest joy in this last season of my life is my Lord's gift of hearing that Ted's and my children are "walking in the Truth". Didn't John say that in his tiny little third epistle? Alongside that "joy" are two other emotions: enduring and despising. Suggestion: Read or listen to Hebrews 12:1 through 4, then do what the Spirit instructs all of us who are in the Body of Christ to do. One young man called me this past week, rightly disturbed about matters that concern us all. My words: "Pick your battles.  Invest Jesus in the lives of these young people you coach who are quagmired in a sex-saturated, money grabbing, fatherless society!". This week a young woman asked me: "How do I know if a church is a 'good one'?"  My answer: "Is there new-believer growth and are the people in the church discipling them or are they depending upon the paid staff to do it?"

I have just listened again through I and II Timothy.  Last week in this blog I had been drenching my soul with Paul's words to the Thessalonians...his first books written through him by the Spirit of God. This week the Lord is taking me to the Timothy's: his last books written before Nero took him outside his dungeon/cell and had his head cut off. Paul did not dread it. He told us that all of us will suffer for the sake of the Gospel if we are going to be conveyor belts for the Truth. As I read and study God's Word in the comfort of my home, my mind stalls as I think of those who have been mocked, burned at the stake, tortured, crucified, sawn in two,  flogged, spit upon. ...counting it a privilege to suffer for the Gospel. ...but for the "joy" set before them, they endured and despised the shame, fixing their eyes, just as we must, upon Jesus. ... to Mt. Zion, a City of the Living God that cannot be shaken. 

Some of us endured being mocked and made fun of the first week we were born from above. Praise God!  Ted and I did not separate from our families; the two-edged Sword of the Spirit separated us. My worst "mocker" was the brother I wrote about a few weeks ago that hauled me out of bed before dawn to go duck hunting.  ...but when he hit a wall even he could not penetrate,  he called Ted and me. "Why are you calling us?" I asked. "Because no one else in this family can help me."  Ted and I were new in our life in Christ.  We did not know how to be Christians, married Christians or married Christian parents. We entered into all three relationships with a mustard seed of faith. It was enough. It was the object of our faith that mattered.  My brother Blair will be in the "throng of witnesses" waiting at the Gate for my arrival. ...whether that is tomorrow or years from now. Ted and I had sixty years together. I sometimes wonder:  Did we have a "marriage" or did we have a "ministry"?  The answer is "Yes"! Ted's and my marriage/ministry was fraught with testings. ...all from God to increase our trust in Him. We were a team. ...a team that was ridiculed for our determination to engage in quality,  rather than quantity.  The Lord excused us from the expectations of two elder boards: to bring in quantity rather than quality.  Praise God! Just as with Paul who was sent home to Tarsus in order to hear only God's voice,  telling him his assignment was to reach the Gentiles  (Horrors!) rather than the Jews, the Lord removed us from what we thought was our assignment in order for us to hear his "still, small voice".

What is your definition of "quality"? Paul reminds Timothy in his second book (2:2) of that lightning- rod assignment to invest in reliable people who will invest in other reliable people, who will invest in other reliable people. ...four generations in one verse. I see nothing at all in this "swan song"  about drawing attention to himself and his success as a leader to multitudes.  Do you? Would Paul have ever dreamed that the Lord would put him in prison for the purpose of writing these transforming letters that have built millions of God's weak people into "oaks of righteousness"?  A little verse in Habbakuk: 2:4 states: "The just...shall live...by faith".  Romans is all about our being declared "just" by the Cross and the Resurrection.  Ephesians is all about being justly "alive"  because of the Cross and Resurrection.  Hebrews is all about justly living "by faith", because of the Cross and Resurrection. (You may not think Paul wrote Hebrews. Who cares? That's one of those "useless arguments" Paul tells us to avoid.)

In Paul's last letter to Timothy, his beloved son-in-the-faith, whose Grandmother and Mother brought him to Paul to parent,  he reminds him to teach men to pray. ...first of all. Praying requires humility. My Ted always said, because he knew himself and he "knew" men:  A man will never become humble until he loses 1) his job; 2) his health; 3) his marriage. ...usually in that order. As together we watched men finally bow to Jesus rather than to Baal, Ted called the process: "The death rattle of the male ego."

A new woman was brought to the Thursday group yesterday, and what a joy she will be! I was wrapping up a study of Hebrews and decided to have our long-in-Heaven mentor, Ray Stedman wrap it for us as we listened to his overview of the book. I suggest that you do that too.  (Ray Stedman.org) My new friend's words as Ray finished in prayer: "I will NOT be SHAKEN!"  PRAISE GOD! Neither will I. Will YOU?  "Fix your eyes only upon Jesus." ...not people. ...not the church. The church is not a "building made with hands".  Christ IN us is the LIGHT in the ever-deepening darkness. Now, you decide what "reliable" means and you won't waste your time on hay, wood and stubble. What are you (I) going to do with the days or years we have left here in this fallen world?

                       OLD HYMN: AM I A SOLDIER OF THE CROSS?

Am I a soldier of the cross? A follower if the Lamb?
And shall I fear to own His cause, or blush to speak His Name?

Must I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease?
While others fought to win the prize and sailed through bloody seas?

Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not stem the flood?
In this vile world a friend to grace; to help him on to God?

Sure, I must fight if I would reign; increase my courage, Lord.
I'll hear the toll, endure the pain. Supported by His Word.

Love, Jo