In 1:18, Paul says "Timothy, my son, I am giving you this command."

In 2:1, he begins by saying, "I urge..."

Why the difference? There's a big difference between commanding and urging. If a police officer commanded you to pull over, it's very different from urging you to pull over. Urging is encouraging - is that the same root? It probably is. Commanding is telling.

There are quite a few people that Paul mentions in his letters who we know very little about. Some of them are good examples of faithfulness. These two are not.

Hymenaeus and Alexander are two Christ-followers who had apparently lost the battle, dropped the faith, seared their consciences, and shipwrecked their lives. In my previous "Timothy My Son" post, I looked at Hymenaeus. Now, let's look at Alexander.

At the end of Paul's second letter to Timothy, Alexander appears in an almost parenthetical statement:

14 Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. 15 You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message.

All we know about him is that he was a metalworker, that he opposed Paul's message, and he is dangerous - be on your guard against him.

Everyone is a leader. Whether those you lead are a sports team, a crew at work, a group at church, your family, or yourself, you are a leader.

And to put it really simply, the better you lead, the better the results!

But that's a lot of pressure!

I love these quotes:

"Leadership is influence - nothing more, and nothing less."

"Speed of the leader = speed of the team."

"Not everyone will become a great leader, but everyone can become a better leader."

"You don't overcome challenges by making them smaller, but by making yourself bigger."

What an interesting ride this has been!

My intent last November was to publish an episode of FIVE Minutes with Phil Routly every second day. So far, so good! This is my 100th post!

Along the way, I've learned a lot. Some friends have helped in many ways, as I've been learning how to work with WordPress and Anchor (which is Spotify). It's been an adventure, with lots of hiccups along the way, as I decided to "jump and build my wings on the way down."

Where would we be without our mothers? I love mine! Only my wife has had more influence on my life, but Mother's Day is when I like to express my love and celebrate all the women in my life.

There are quite a few people that Paul mentions in his letters who we know very little about. Some of there are good examples of faithfulness. These two are not.

Hymenaeus and Alexander are two Christ-followers who had apparently lost the battle, dropped the faith, seared their consciences, and shipwrecked their lives.

Put simply, the Pareto Principle says that if you list your priorities in the correct order, and complete the top 20%, you will have completed 80% of what you need to do. If they are in the incorrect order, even if you get 80% of the tasks completed, you may only accomplish 20% of your goals.

Fight the fight of faith. Keep you conscience clear. That way, you won't shipwreck your life.

Paul knows something about being shipwrecked, because it literally happened to him.

Acts 20 begins with Paul going to Macedonia and then travelling to Greece. This would have been in 56 A.D., when Paul wrote his 2nd letter to the Corinthians and his letter to the church in Rome. In it, he says "I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you. I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles" (Rom 1:10-13).

September 2nd, 1972, was the beginning of 8 hockey games that any Canadian alive at the time will never forget. The first four games were in Canada, and the final four in Moscow. Our expectation was that Canada would win at least 7 of the games - after all, this is our sport!

But were we ever taken to the woodshed! By the end of the fourth game in Vancouver, we had lost 2 games and tied one, and as a nation, we were embarrassed!

Paul writes, Timothy, hold on to a good conscience.

I will never forget the before and after of my asking Jesus to come into my heart when I was 7 years of age. I went from being the world's worst sinner (in my own eyes) to being a newly-born infant in Christ. I remember feeling like I had just had the world's best bath! My sins were washed away! My conscience was clear!

The conscience. The dictionary describes it as "an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior." In other words, when I do something, or am contemplating doing something, how do I feel about whether or not it's the right thing to do? Not in terms of good, better best, but in comparison with what is right.