II Timothy 2: 20-21

20 - 21: Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.

Here I am, Send Me is a 6 day devotional focused on understanding how we can prepare ourselves to be used by God to serve whatever purpose He needs. Matt 22:14 says “Many are called, but few are chosen” and this got me thinking about why that is.  The Bible gives us so many examples of people called by God to do extraordinary things and there were a couple of things I noticed in those examples.  They all were available, active, and obedient to God,

As Christians, God’s chosen, we are called to do great things in His name and leave a legacy for others. 

Matt 22:14:  Many are called, but few are chosen.

As Christians, our hope is to be able to serve God in our own way with the gifts and talents that He’s given us.  And as much as God can raise a rock to praise Him or exercise His power to take control of people and circumstances, He allows free will and provides us, His children, the opportunity to do His will.  Matt 22:14 says that “Many are called, but few are chosen” but why is that the case?  With so many called, why does it fall on the few to do all the work? And how can we be one of those few?  A lot of people have had or will have the opportunity to serve God but not everyone answers “the call” to serve when God needs people.  The Bible gives us so many examples of people called by God to do extraordinary things; people like Moses, Isaiah, Noah, Jonah, David, Joshua, Samuel, Paul and many, many more.  There are so many things to learn from all these people’s lives but the common things that stood out to me about them and their scenarios is that they were all available, active, dependent on God and obedient.  II Timothy 2:21 (NKJV) also speaks towards the lifestyle we need to have; it states that “if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work.”  So in order to be someone that God can use, these are some things we can do:

In our time of preparation:

·        Flee youthful lusts

·        Pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace

·        Avoid foolish and ignorant arguments & don’t quarrel with people

·        Be gentle to all, able to teach, patient and correcting opposition with humility

In our time of waiting:

·        Be available

·        Be active

·        Be dependent on God

·        Be obedient

Remember, it’s a process and God doesn’t need to use a finished, refined, all put together person to serve Him; His Glory is made full by using the broken and foolish things of this world that people would least expect for His purposes.

Charge:

Lord, take me as I am and mold me into the vessel that You can best use to fulfill Your will. I want to grow closer to You daily and I am grateful for the opportunity to serve and be used by You today.

II Timothy 2:22: Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

As we prepare ourselves to be used by God, one of the most common hindrances to our ability to do God’s work is the pull of sin and evil.  It’s natural to be tempted by one or more things; we are human after all, and living in fleshly bodies.  We are constantly surrounded by temptations like greed, sex, ambition, material things, status, etc but II Timothy 2:22 reminds us that we are meant to “flee..youthful lusts” and instead “pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace.”  The power of these sinful desires is so strong that God doesn’t even suggest we try and fight through or battle these desires, He instead tells us to “run Forrest, run!” Get outta there ASAP!  Matt 26:41 points to one of the primary reasons why this is the case because even if the intention to do right is there, that “the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” so it’s better to eliminate the risk altogether.  And to clarify, youthful lusts are not limited to teenagers, young adults, or whatever group you consider to be youthful, it’s more about the immature mentality that I can have whatever I want whenever I want it.  

Now that we know what to flee from, what are we meant to pursue?  It’s never enough to just eliminate something, it needs to be replaced with a positive opposing action.  We have to pursue righteousness, which in biblical terms is living in a way that is just, honest and faithful to God’s will. This requires deliberate action from us to learn what His will is and what God’s commandments are, establish and develop a relationship with Him and emulate Christlike behavior. We must pursue faith.  And to obtain that faith, Romans 10:17 lets us know that "faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.”  Faith that is established without proof and witnessed daily through the strength of our belief.   Pursue Love. This is not romantic love; this is that “love thy neighbor as thyself” kind of love, that agape love.  We must remember to reflect God’s love to the world.  Pursue peace. Be an instrument to bring and maintain peace instead of being the reason that peace falls apart.  There are going to be so many situations in our lives that present us the opportunity to demonstrate love and exercise patience or the opposite response where we are driven by the flesh and give in to emotions that make us act outside of the Christ-like nature we are meant to emulate.  Run away from the lust and chase after righteousness, faith, love and peace. 

Charge:

Father, help me to run away from those things that will push me away from You. Let my desire be to pursue You in every area of my life so I can become the vessel that helps to execute Your will here on earth. 

II Tim 2:23-25:  Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth.

Simply put, avoid fights. If you are not a professional or amateur debater or don’t get paid to argue and fight with people like a WWE wrestler, where talking trash is part of the job description, then just avoid disputes. There are more beneficial ways to spend our time and energy than allowing ourselves to get caught up in situations that cause us to act out of God's character. And it's not that we can't get into debates or “argue” or defend a position verbally, it's more the case that we don't need to engage in foolish and ignorant arguments as described in verse 23. These are the kind of arguments that can be triggered by negative emotions like anger, hate, jealousy, unforgiveness where oftentimes logic and reasoning and most especially, love go out the door. 

It can get to a point where we become more consumed with making a point, being right or inflicting pain that the impact of our words no longer matter.  This is where we have to take a step back and ask ourselves, where is God in all this? If we can’t demonstrate God's characteristics by our participation in this conversation, we probably need to also remove ourselves from it as well.  We always want to be where God is while at the same time bringing God to every situation we're in.

Since we are not wasting our energy arguing with people unnecessarily, we can actually focus on developing that gentleness, patience and loving correction that II Tim 2:23 speaks about. As my wife says and I’m sure a lot of men have heard, “tone matters.”  That verbal and spiritual tone can often be the difference between someone accepting Christ as their savior or someone not repenting from a sinful act or lifestyle that they’ve been living and hardening their heart to God. So remember, when we don’t come with a teaching spirit and loving heart, all people will see and hear is judgement and condemnation and that will only hurt the work we are called to do.  

Charge:

Father God, help me to follow Your lead and be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Help me to speak when needed and stay silent when not and may my actions always be in line with Your will for my life.

Galatians 5:13:  You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.

It’s often said the greatest ability is availability, and that’s just as true for God’s kingdom as it is in the world.  Being available doesn’t mean that you’re not occupied or that you’re just sitting around waiting for something to do though; in the majority of examples given in the Bible, it’s actually been the opposite but we’ll talk about that more later.  For us as believers, our availability starts with being a Christian and having that fundamental relationship with Christ as our Lord and Savior. He set us free from the bondage of sin and ensured our place with Him in Heaven but that freedom isn’t for us to seek enjoyment and the “soft life;” it’s for us to serve His will. God can use anyone and this is not to say that God cannot use an unbeliever because He, in fact, can use anyone or anything, at any time, but He wants willing participants for His service. Think of us Christians as God’s employees with awesome benefits packages, while those people without relationships with God, creatures and objects are contractors. Pharaoh was a contractor for God when God hardened Pharaoh's heart against Moses and the Israelites so that He could deliver them from Egypt in a miraculous fashion. The tug of war between God, through Moses, and Pharaoh can be seen from Exodus chapters 5 - 14:49. He also used the whale that swallowed Jonah to carry him safely to dry land as seen in Jonah 2:10.  

Another aspect of being available is that we are able to give attention and priority to God when He wants it. To put it into perspective, you might have a group of friends or family that you interact with but amongst this group of people, there are some that you always make time for whenever they reach out to you while others you get to when you have time. Being available to God is like that, when He calls you, you’re not putting His call on hold or letting Him “go to voicemail.” In the Bible there are a lot of grand examples of people being disrupted by the calling of God.  He literally spoke audibly to people or sent angels to deliver His message so God made Himself very hard to ignore. When you have time, read about Moses and the burning bush in Exodus 3 and also about the conversion of Saul in Acts 9:1-19 to learn more about how God approached these people.  The lesson to take from these stories though is that when He needs you, you stop what you’re doing and give Him all your attention. Our lives and plans cannot be set in a way that God cannot disrupt them to fulfill His purpose. 

Charge

Father, help me to not get so caught up in my own life that I miss Your purpose and direction for me. Grant me grace when You speak and move, and help me to recognize when You do.