Happy Monday Everyone!
Scripture: 2 Timothy 2:22-24
22 Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. 23 Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. 24 And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. 25
Observation
We are called to PURSUE righteousness, faith, love and peace. It's not just going to magically happen as we have been believers for a long time. It is a pursuit that must be searched out. Verse 23 is one for me! Don't have ANYTHING to do with foolish and stupid arguments.
Application
There are several application steps for me in this passage.
- Keep intentionally pursuing the righteousness of God along with other people searching for the same thing. Connect with other believers in this pursuit - don't do it alone!
- Walk away from foolish conversations and arguments. How often don't I get sucked into this! I must admit, I'm a sucker for a good argument. I can actually be quite argumentative at times, and God has really been focusing on this aspect of my personality lately. Quite fitting that I get this passage today! :)
- Finally, we must be kind to everyone. Everyone. Not just the people that are kind to us...
Prayer
God, help us pursue you today. Would you send your Holy Spirit to nudge us towards gentleness today? Give us the clarity of mind and action to walk away from foolish conversations and arguments. God, direct our words and actions today in pursuit of your righteousness. Amen.
Tomorrow's passage: Ezekiel 18-19, 2 Timothy 3
6 comments:
Those verses stood out to me too, Jody. Was anyone else a little uncomfortable with the first chapter of today's Ezekiel reading? I don't remember that passage from last year. It's very... bald, if you know what I mean.
There is a lot of very graphic language in Ezekiel. The worst is yet to come. Ezekiel and Jeremiah were the last to prophesy before the fall of Jerusalem and you can definitely sense the urgency in their messages ~ Jeremiah's become more and more frantic and Ezekiel's are quite shocking. God was confronting the Jews with a look at sin from His point of view, and it is just truly revolting.
Yes, Ezekiel 16 is graphic and brutal. And that's exactly how God sees sin. It's a huge deal! I read a great sermon on this...
http://www.preachtheword.com/sermon/ezek10.shtml
"What Ezekiel is seeking to do is to tear down the misconception of 'Jerusalem the Golden' - but rather in this chapter you will be horrified to find he is describing 'Jerusalem the Harlot'....There's no holds barred, everything is just let loose, and this lustful tirade of iniquity and prostitution - and it's from God, these words are from God!...if we miss the terror and the tragedy and the abhorrence of these words, we miss God's point. Ezekiel is not wanting to be polite about the sins of God people! In fact, this is what his job is, and this is what the job of a prophet is - to come to the people of God and to expose their sin, and to expose it in all of its of ugliness because it is abhorrent to God, and God wants us to know it's abhorrent!"
Great post Jody. Those are hard hitting verses, FULL of application in our daily lives that's for sure.
Another great sermon on Ezekiel 17... http://www.preachtheword.com/sermon/ezek11.shtml
Explains the parables very well.
Ezekiel 16 totally caught me off guard. I was going to do the post on that chapter but couldn't bring myself to start typing some of those words!! lol. Thanks for the thoughts girls!
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