I’m so glad to see you here for the third part of our first ever Deep Dive. I’ve been praying that with each weekly study, we see His truth and love for us all the more clearly.
And reflect that back to the world we live in.
Let’s Recap For Just a Second
In our first look at the intention behind the promise of 2nd Timothy 1:7, we figured out that this verse wasn’t about just any ol’ fear but the hesitation and timidity that comes with feeling like His calling on your life is too big or overwhelming.
Fear associated with when you second guess your ability.
But when you second guess your ability for something He’s called you to, you’re also second guessing His ability to then equip you.
Especially when He’s been equipping you for this all along.
And that was the crux of Paul’s words to his successor. The entire time that you’ve been pursuing His will, He’s been preparing you for His plan.
The whole time you’ve been pursuing His will, He’s been preparing you for His plan.
mchristineduncan
And then in the latest post we discovered that not only does He prepare us with just any abiliy but explosive and dynamic power. Unstoppable power because it’s directly from the same source that can make blind eyes see and raise the dead.
Who else had themselves a little 30 second dance party at that kind of news? Yeah, me too!
When Love and Discipline Are Added
“… but of power, love, and discipline.” I think Timothy understood those last two elements of his impending calling so very well.
You don’t follow your mentor and friend for as long as he did, watching Paul spread the gospel, preaching, starting churches, and maintaining churches, without witnessing love.
Changing the religious current so profoundly that he’d be jailed by those in power in an attempt to halt the gospel. Timothy couldn’t have apprenticed with Paul without being aware of the kind of discipline it takes to keep going.
Even from behind bars.
Timothy would already be aware of these two qualities in spades.
But the point is that Paul reminds him that now they are supplied by God, the unlimited Source.
The original text says it’s “agape” love. You aren’t just equipped with a human love. If God calls you, it’s a holy love.
One biblical commentary called it “an all-encompassing drive to embrace all of mankind. The desire to see your fellow humans through the eyes of God, unconditional and lavishly generous.”
Yes, He’ll equip us with dynamic and unstoppable power. But it’ll get partnered with an overwhelming desire to love the way He loves.
In other words, it won’t just change others. It’ll change you too. And the more you seek to use your calling His way, the more you stoke the desire to remain more firmly in Him.
He Won’t Leave You Guessing
Some Bible versions of verse 7 say “sound mind”, some use “self-control” and others use the word “discipline”. None are wrong. But they can fall short when you know that the greek word is sophronismos.
Derived from the word for sober-minded and suggests a drive and want for only the things of God to the exclusion of all else.
God wants to supply us with the holy and unrelenting ability to keep eyes on Him.
And as a result, we won’t have to guess if He’s really at work. And if He’s really on the move in your life. Because you won’t be able to be distracted by anything else.
You can trust fully and inequivocably in His calling on your life. Because not only will His supply for you include an unstoppable holy power, and an unrelenting love for others you can’t ignore.
But will also include an overriding desire to be fully immersed in Him alone. This makes me instantly think of this verse in Isaiah that says;
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.
Isaiah 26:3
Did you just get as excited as I just did? He will equip us with a mind stayed on Him, and in return, you can know that God has not given us “even a hint of hesitation” but the perfect peace Isaiah highlights for us!
Ladies and gents, don’t look now but we just came full circle.
Let’s Put Together What We Know
And here we thought this was just a cliche verse about fear. But this is so much bigger.
I sat for the longest time the other day digesting all of this, and asking Him to reveal the parts of me that had been taking things on in my own efforts to be useful to Him or others. But without checking to see if I had accessed what He was waiting to supply me with specifically. And to search out the parts of my heart or desires that were based in cowardice, and hesitation.
What would you have me do Lord? Where are you leading?
And spending time really looking at all the cogs and gears of scripture. The origins, the backstory, the geography, who’s writing, and to whom at that time in history.
I’ve learned His Word isn’t just alive, but intentional.
And that “God hasn’t given us even a breath of timidity, but a supply of unstoppable power, all-emcompassing affection and concern for all, and a need for all things Him.”
I’m so glad we could discover this mammoth promise together!
Tomorrow we’ll wrap this all up with some extra scriptural goodies.
And go now into our day to day with a richer and empowering understanding of a verse that will bring life to us in better and better ways.
Let’s keep the Deep Dive community going!
If you missed the first two posts, you can read the first one here, and the second one here!
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