Good morning and welcome to Monday. My name is Alan and I have the privilege continuing our journey through 1 Timothy with you through the week immediately after Easter.

REFLECTION:

Today’s reading is 1Timothy 4:1-5. I’m going to focus on verse 1.

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.

Once upon a time you were happy with a notebook and pen. You could write things down, you could do calculations, if you wanted to communicate with someone in a far off land you could write a letter and pop it in the post. If it was truly urgent you could pick up a telephone and make a call. Then one day a man was sent from the future. This man’s name was “Steve.” Steve spoke about the future, and creativity. He promised you the world and sold you a computer, a shiny, colourful computer. You could write things down, do calculations (a whole lot quicker) and if you wanted to communicate with someone in a far off land you could write an email! If it was really urgent and you wanted to see someone’s face he gave you FaceTime. He gave you music, and wearable devices, glasses that did clever stuff but they didn’t quite work, but we will overlook that because Steve was a guru. He gave his Apple and we tasted and saw and it was good.

But then came a young upstart, his name was Google and he began to draw people away. He whispered in the ears of those who were young and impressionable. He promised cheaper goods with higher spec. He opened up this new world to other creative types and promised more and better and quicker and shinier… and the people were deceived!

I am playing with you a little. But what I am talking to you about today is loyalty and fidelity to a brand. Apple users are sold on Apple products and they fill their lives with the best. Android and Google users can be just as loyal.

In this passage Paul writes: some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.

Faith is a word in the church that we know all too well. It is very familiar and sometimes familiarity can breed… well… misunderstanding.

Faith is about loyalty, trust, fidelity. We as Christians have chosen to put our trust in Jesus. We have chosen to fill our lives with him. We have chosen to trust him, to take him at his word and put into practice his teaching. We have sworn allegiance to him and seek every day to lean in to him and follow his instruction. To switch to another way of life, to be drawn away from him, is an even bigger deal than to switch from Apple to Google, Android, Windows… whatever!

But the deceiving spirits are subtle. It’s rare that we even notice the erosion of our faith, the whispers of the world trying to lure us away. Perhaps that’s why Paul, the writer of these words, is able to see what’s happening more clearly than Timothy, who is the leader at the centre of the church to whom Paul is writing.

So how can we spot these deceiving spirits? Put simply, the deceiving spirits will always try to push Jesus out of the focus of the centre of our lives. The deceiving spirits will always try to put the focus back on us. “It’s what we want that is most important.” “It’s what we think that counts.” “It’s what we are achieving through our hard work that matters, it’s about us providing for our family, it’s about us coping or not coping with all the world throws at us.” “It’s about us praying enough or working really hard to be holy.” “It’s about what I can achieve and not what God is wanting to do through us!”

That is a slippery slope to abandoning the faith…

No! Our focus is Jesus. Our work is Jesus, our following is of Jesus. Our lives, they are surrendered to Jesus, the one who through his phenomenal love has won ou...