PASSIONATE
PURSUIT OF PURPOSE
2 TIMOTHY 2:22 (VOICE)
Timothy,
run away from youthful desires. Instead, direct your passion
to
chasing after righteousness, faithfulness, love, and peace,
along with those who call upon the Lord with
pure hearts.
If the Apostle Paul were
writing to Timothy in our day and time, he might say, “Timothy, I want you to a
living billboard for the ‘True Love Waits’ movement.” Timothy was not a
teenager but was young according to the standards of Greek culture in his day. Since
a wife is never mentioned in connection with Timothy in Paul’s letters, one
presumes he was single at the time. It was almost expected that young men would
pursue their sexual desires, but Timothy was urged to commit to the purity the
Lord Jesus commands. Paul cautioned him not to be impulsive or impetuous but to
be slow and steady, not to have knee-jerk responses to challenges he faced.
Paul was confident the Spirit would enable Timothy to remain faithful to all
that the word of God required. He encouraged Timothy to funnel his passions
into faithfully pursuing the character of Christ in his life.
Mary Slessor was a prime
example of an unmarried woman faithfully, passionately pursuing God’s call. She
was born in Scotland in 1848, the daughter of a drunken father and a devout
Christian mother. She worked in a mill for twelve hours a day until the Lord
called her to missionary service in Calabar (Nigeria). At twenty-nine-years-old
she disembarked from a steamer to begin her divine destiny in Duke Town.
Against all advice, she eventually pursued unreached tribes of cannibals who
her friends feared would eat her before letting her share the Gospel. They
practiced abominations such as killing twins and their mother because of a
superstition that one twin must be the devil’s offspring. She rescued many of
these twins and mothers and planted herself between warring groups to force
them to talk to each other. When she could no longer walk to the villages, she
rode in a cart sent to her by friends. She remained faithful to her Lord
despite all hardships and stood strong and brave by the power of the Holy
Spirit.
Are you faithfully,
passionately pursuing that which the Lord has laid on your heart?
No comments:
Post a Comment