a trustworthy statement…
Monday, I had the priviledge of being a part of the ordination of Joey Fink’s ordination; he serves on staff at a Presbyterian church in Wichita, KS, but came to faith and calling through Hope in his younger days. It was a really special an intimate time with them, and I’m excited for he and Nicole’s future in ministry.
During the ordination process, I kept thinking about a passage in 2 Timothy:
It is a trustworthy statement:
For if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him;
If we endure, we shall also reign with Him;
If we deny Him, He also will deny us;
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself. (2:11-13)
I kept thinking about that idea of enduring. Jeff noted that to endure literally means to outlast what you are facing, and the more I think about it, the more I believe I do a horrible job of teaching endurance as part of the full message of the gospel. 2 Timothy is full of charges from Paul to Timothy, and the call to endure the hardships of ministry may be the most repetitive of those charges:
Faith is hard to have, and true faith will (or must) outlast all that opposes it.
Sometimes we don’t like to think about a life of faith being a call to endure; we’d rather it be a gradual increase of all the things we see to be fair and right for us to have, both materially and otherwise. But life has proven over and over again that it’s never like that in the real world, for Christians or anyone else.
Paul said that these statements are trustworthy. And I love how these statements do not end with a focus on the possibility of failure or denial, but on the faithfulness of God, who cannot deny himself. Those who have lost faith, or maybe feel like they’re losing faith, can rest on this statement: He is faithful. Endure. Outlast. He will not deny those who do not deny him.
If you need prayer in the midst of a tough situation, leave me a comment. I’ll be praying for you.
