The 260 Journey

Day 201

Today’s Reading: Titus 1

A deacon sent in his apologies for the Sunday morning service, claiming that he was ill with the flu. One of the church members, however, said he had seen the deacon on his way to a baseball game. After the service, the minister visited the deacon. “Brother,” he said. “I have information that you were not sick at all this morning, but went to watch a ball game.” The deacon protested and was angry: “That’s a vicious lie about me! I’ll show you my fish to prove it!”

Men lie, but God doesn’t. That’s the message of Titus 1. And Paul wants that to be clear for the young pastor, Titus, who is dealing with a culture of lying and deceit on the isle of Crete, as he embarks on a mission in a new area for the gospel.

Consider some of the biggest lies ever told:

The check is in the mail.

I’ll start my diet tomorrow.

Give me your number, and the doctor will call you right back.

One size fits all.

It’s not the money, it’s the principle of the thing.

Even though we are not seeing each other anymore, we can still be friends.

I’ve never done anything like this before.

This hurts me more than it hurts you.

Your table will be ready in a few minutes.

Open wide, it won’t hurt a bit.

A study done by researchers at Michigan State University found that the average number of lies people tell a day are 1.6—that means we lie about five hundred times a year!

A 2004 study at Temple University School of Medicine found that lying takes more brain energy than telling the truth. Researchers divided participants into two groups. They asked those in the first group to shoot a toy gun and then lie and say they didn’t do it. Those in the second group watched what happened and then told the truth about it. An MRI machine indicated that the liars had to use seven areas of the brain in their response. By comparison, those who told the truth only used four areas of the brain.

We serve a God who always tells the truth. In theology we call it the veracity of God. Titus 1 starts off with reminding us of this fact. Paul is writing to Titus who used to be his travel companion. Paul led Titus to Christ, which is why he calls him “my true child in the faith.” Paul has left Titus at Crete to bring things in order there. And the first thing that Paul reminds Titus is that whatever God says is true because God cannot lie: 

"From Paul, God’s willing slave and an apostle of Jesus, the Anointed One, to Titus. I’m writing you to further the faith of God’s chosen ones and lead them to the full knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, which rests on the hope of eternal life. God, who never lies, has promised us this before time began." (Titus 1:1-2, TPT)

Paul is telling Titus that he knows he left him in a place where a lot of lying is going on. And he tells Titus in verses 10-12 that Titus is surrounded by liars and deceivers. That is why Paul wants him to know one thing, and the people there need to know it also: that God cannot lie. It’s the veracity of God.

The word veracity means habitual truth. It means you always tell the truth. God not only tells the truth but designed us to do the same. He knows our body works better when we tell the truth. A USA Today article lists body signals of lying, which include: increased blinking and pupil dilation; a facial expression incongruous with what’s being said; increased body movement (especially hand gestures); shorter sentences; more speaking pauses and errors; more negative words and extreme words. Think about it. Why do lie-detector tests work? Authorities can tell we are lying because of our heart rate, sweat, tone of voice, and other factors that are all indicators that a person is lying. A lie-detector test figures out a person is lying by the reaction of their body—which shows that we were created to tell the truth!

God who cannot lie is a huge statement. That means God can be completely trusted. When God speaks, we can believe it.

When Paul says, “God cannot lie,” he is making more than a statement. He is laying a foundational stone for Christianity. Our Christianity rises or falls on the veracity of God. The Bible is the Word of God. And if God cannot lie, then it is the truth of God. They are not just words spoken but truth spoken.

The assurance and comfort we have today as we do the 260 Journey is that every chapter we read we can believe, because God is telling the truth and we can believe Him. He is absolutely consistent with what He says and what He does. There are no fluctuations. 

Paul ends the chapter by reminding Titus that even people will lie about serving Jesus. It’s called duplicity—their words and actions don’t match. It’s dishonesty. Here is what Paul says: “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are disgusting, disobedient, and disqualified from doing anything good” (Titus 1:16, TPT).

We serve a God who is the opposite of duplicitous, He is trustworthy. God is honest, He tells the truth, God cannot lie.

Day 200

Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 4

Let me give you an apostle Paul timeline. Paul’s conversion is in Acts 9 around AD 34. Second Timothy is his last letter and that is in AD 67. He writes it thirty-three years after the day he met Jesus. Paul’s entrance into the ministry is in Acts 13, in AD 48—fourteen years after his salvation experience on the road to Damascus. So he has been preaching and in full-time ministry for about two decades. Now two verses before he is about to pen his last words ever, he throws in a sentence of mystery: “Erastus remained at Corinth, but Trophimus I left sick at Miletus” (2 Timothy 4:20).

Paul couldn’t leave well enough alone. He has to say something in regards to sickness and Christians. Only someone who has been in ministry for as long as the apostle can throw that sentence in his final letter. The Trophimus mystery is the mystery every Christian battles: why are people still sick when Jesus heals?

At some point in our lives we have asked those questions either for ourselves or others. Paul’s seven words leave us hanging, longing for the answer: But Trophimus I left sick at Miletus. The man who God used to bring healing to people’s lives leaves a seven-year companion sick in Miletus. Paul has healed people in Acts 14, 19, 20, and 28, but not 2 Timothy 4.

Paul heals others, but Trophimus he leaves sick. It doesn’t seem to make sense. Everyone he heals in the book of Acts he does not know personally, but Trophimus he does. So why has he left this one sick at Miletus?

There is much speculation but no definitive answer. Some say divine chastisement. Some say he might not have had faith to be healed. And some put it on Paul: “Paul healed in Lystra and cast out demons in Philippi and wrought miracles in Ephesus but he failed with Trophimus.”

We do not know the answer. Paul does a lot. But I like knowing that Paul’s track record isn’t perfect. There is a sick guy in Miletus.

Whatever the answer is, there are times we must leave Trophimus sick at Miletus. We may win many to Christ but not everyone. There is always one. There are scores of answered prayers but there are some for whom God says no, and the prayer is like Trophimus, left without an answer.

Miletus is one spot on the map where a man was not healed. We will have our Miletus too. I am rather glad for Trophimus here in the Bible. I am helped by the fact that we don’t have this unbroken record of successes and that everything Paul did was a success. I could not keep up with that. The great Baptist preacher Vance Havner said we must “leave room for Trophimus, allow for a Miletus to be somewhere along your journey.”

Some days are sick days. Some days are “I blew it” days. “One of the reasons why mature people stop growing and learning,” says John Gardner, “is that they become less and less willing to risk failure.” Because someone didn’t get healed doesn’t mean we stop praying for people. Just because they did not respond the right way when we shared Jesus with them doesn’t mean we stop telling people the Good News. I’m glad Trophimus is in the Bible. And we need to remember that Trophimus being left sick in Miletus does not diminish Paul or his work or his character.

Former figure skating Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton and his wife, Tracie, have four children, including two adopted from Haiti. While he was pursuing his success as a skater, he once said he dropped out of church involvement and started what he jokingly called “The Church of Scott.” But through the love of his wife and other Christians, he came to a sincere faith in Christ. Rooted in his faith, Hamilton had an interesting take on dealing with personal sin and failure. In a 2018 New York Times interview, Hamilton said: “I calculated once how many times I fell during my skating career—41,600 times. But I got up all 41,600 times. That’s the muscle you have to build in you—the one that reminds you to just get up.”

Trophimus in 2 Timothy 4 is a mystery. I really do think Paul prayed for his friend and believed for his friend’s healing. But Trophimus was not healed. And that’s okay, because I’m okay with having spots in my Christian walk with mystery. Evelyn Underhill said it like this: “If the Reality of God was small enough to be grasped, it would not be great enough to be adored.”

I think God leaves mystery moments in our faith walk, which means mystery in our faith walk doesn’t have to necessarily bring doubt but it can inspire adoration. Doubt comes when we feel as though we are owed an explanation. Adoration comes when we realize we are involved with Someone way bigger than we are. Let’s adore Him even  in the mystery.

Day 199

Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 3

Biblical prophecy provides some of the greatest encouragement and hope available to us today. Just as the Old Testament is saturated with prophecies concerning Christ’s first coming, so both the Old Testament and the New Testament are filled with references to the second coming of Christ. One scholar has estimated there are 1,845 references to Christ’s second coming in the Old Testament, where seventeen books give it prominence. In the 260 chapters of the New Testament, there are 318 references to the second coming of Jesus. That means one out of every thirty verses talk about Jesus coming again. And twenty-three of the twenty-seven New Testament books refer to it. For every prophecy in the Bible concerning Christ’s first coming, there are eight that look forward to His second coming!

Both of Paul’s letters to Timothy speak of Christ’s second coming. And in today’s chapter, Paul warns Timothy about the condition of humanity just before Christ comes again. The prophetic words he gives to the young pastor are not only chilling but eye opening—because the condition he describes can be easily attributed to our culture today. That means we are closer than ever to the second coming of Jesus.

Billy Graham said, “Some years ago, my wife, Ruth, was reading the draft of a book I was writing. When she finished a section describing the terrible downward spiral of our nation’s moral standards and the idolatry of worshiping false gods such as technology and sex, she startled me by exclaiming, ‘If God doesn’t punish America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.’”

Consider what Paul says about what the planet will look like before Jesus comes:

"In the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power." (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

Paul gives nineteen descriptions in verses 2-4 to distinguish what humanity will look like and how they will be controlled. What is striking is that five of them have to do with love. It is a misdirected love, a misconstrued love, a deceptive love. It’s humanity not loving the One for whom they were created but finding a very bad substitute. 

Look at what they love instead of God: self, money, pleasure. Then look at the other two: they are unloving or without love and not lovers of God. The phrase without love or unloving means without true love. It means that people today are not without love—it’s just the wrong love.

Paul wants to warn Timothy that when people are not lovers of God, they will start to believe that “there is no God, and since there is no God, let us start loving other things—self, money, and pleasure.”

But we also find hope in these verses. Notice what verse one tells us: “In the last days difficult times will come . . .” Paul is saying, In the last days, Satan will unleash his worst—but God will unleash His best.

Remember those words, In the last days. There is another section of Scripture that starts off with those words. It’s found in Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:

“It shall be in the last days,” God says, “that I will pour forth of My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on My bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17-18)

Wow! That is so encouraging. That means the second coming of Jesus is not to discourage us but to encourage us. As the nineteenth-century preacher, G. Campbell Morgan said:

To me the second coming is the perpetual light on the path which makes the present bearable. I never lay my head on the pillow without thinking that perhaps before the morning breaks, the final morning may have dawned. I never begin my work without thinking that perhaps He may interrupt my work and begin His own. This is now His word to all believing souls, “Till I come.” We are not looking for death, we are looking for Him.

Early on during World War II, the Japanese army stormed the Philippines and forced United States General Douglas MacArthur to leave the islands. Upon leaving the Philippines, General MacArthur declared his famous promise, “I shall return.” And he did, walking ashore a victor at Leyte in the Philippines several years later. There is a more famous “I shall return.” This one from the Captain of the hosts, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who declared to His fearful band of disciples, “I will come again” (John 14:3).

Day 198

Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 2

Bill Bright has been one of the most influential Christian leaders of our generation. He and his wife, Vonette, founded Campus Crusade for Christ , which is now active in 190 countries, and consists of 26,000 staff members and an additional 553,000 trained volunteers, who work on campuses and in various settings around the world. Campus Crusade also produced the Jesus film that has been seen by more than 5.5 billion people to date, and the “I Found It” campaign, which swept the globe in 1975 and brought millions more to Christ. Bill also wrote more than one hundred books. He wrote his last one, The Journey Home, when he was slowly and painfully losing his battle with a debilitating illness called pulmonary fibrosis.

This is how his physician told him he didn’t have much longer to live:

'He sat me down one day—Vonette and me—in his office and said, “You don’t seem to realize what’s happening to you. You’re dying. It’s worse than cancer. It’s worse than heart trouble. We can deal with these in some measure, but nobody can help you with pulmonary fibrosis. You are going to die a miserable death. You need to get your head out of the sand and be prepared for it.”

So I said, “Well, praise the Lord. I’ll see the Lord sooner than I’d planned.”'

American poet W. H. Auden wrote, “Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.” Think about that. While everyone is eating and enjoying the day, we all know there is an end. One Puritan writer said, “If you attempt to talk with a dying man about sports or business, he is no longer interested. He now sees other things as more important. People who are dying recognize what we often forget, that we are standing on the brink of another world.”

Second Timothy is the apostle Paul’s “long journey home” book. This is number fourteen of Paul’s letters. It’s his last one. And it's an investment into leaders and, more specifically, young leaders. Former United States Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, said, “The task of the leader is to get their people from where they are to where they have not been.” This was the charge Paul gave Timothy:

"No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops." (2 Timothy 2:4-6)

In this challenge to Timothy, Paul uses three images: a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer. With each of these images and examples, Paul specified something importantly inherent in each of them: to be effective.

Be a soldier. If you are in active service, you don’t entangle yourself in the affairs of everyday life. Or as one version says: “For every soldier called to active duty must divorce himself from the distractions of this world” (TPT). The soldier sees the big picture. He is not distracted by minutiae, but is in it to please the One who enlisted Him. The soldier lives for his General.

Be an athlete. Compete according to the rules. There are no shortcuts to winning. Paul is saying the prize is for those who keep the rules. With so many performance-enhancing drugs hitting professional athletes today, it’s a perfect example of trying to cut corners to win. Winning in the Christian life has no shortcuts. It may be a longer path and journey but God is doing something in your training.

Be a farmer. He is referred to as the hard-working farmer. Hard work gets results. The fruit of the farmer’s labor is inevitable; a crop comes because of his commitment to that field. In God’s Kingdom, it seems God gives promises, but they are not automatic. God gives the children of Israel the promised land, but Joshua has to fight for it for seven years. Work hard and stay diligent.

Leadership calls for those who see the bigger picture, those who don’t take shortcuts, and those who work hard. One of my favorite writers is W. H. Griffith Thomas. He gave this priceless insight to young preachers: “Think yourself empty, read yourself full, write yourself clear, pray yourself keen—then enter the pulpit and let yourself go!”

That’s what Paul did for young Timothy.

Day 197

Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 1

The apostle Paul gets three verses into Timothy’s second letter as a young pastor and reminds him that serving God must be done with a clear conscience: “Timothy, I thank God for you—the God I serve with a clear conscience, just as my ancestors did. Night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers” (2 Timothy 1:3, NLT).

Serving God with a clear conscience. This is paramount in our relationship with God. For the most part a clear conscience helps us to know the voice of God. One of my dear friends and mentors Winkie Pratney said: “A clear conscience is absolutely essential for distinguishing between the voice of God and the voice of the enemy. Unconfessed sin is a prime reason why many do not know God’s will.”

Your conscience is where you hear the whisper of God and feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The old saying goes, “Conscience does not keep you from doing anything. It just keeps you from enjoying it.” I love a small boy’s definition of what the conscience is: “something that makes you tell your mother before your sister does.” A clear conscience makes you stop before it’s too late. It helps you to slam on the brakes before you say and do something that you will regret later.

So many people skip a clear conscience and keep going till consequences show up. And so many Christians assume it’s okay to blow by the warning of their conscience and to continue on when really God has given us a mechanism to pause before moving forward.

Our goal is to have a clear conscience. There are different types of violated consciences in the New Testament, which are important for us to take note of. It comes after a conscience that was not kept clear:

• Paul warns Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:2 of a seared conscience.

• Paul tells Titus in Titus 1:15 to be aware of a defiled conscience.

• The writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 10:22 warns of an evil conscience.

I believe that every time we fail to keep our consciences clear, you border on a defiled or evil or even seared conscience. Do not dismiss conviction. It’s the brake for moving forward into regret. Many of us have regrets because we did not respond to conviction. And so it’s important for us to respond to conviction instead of waiting for consequences.

What makes us stop and pause? Conviction or being caught?

Conviction is when we feel something deep inside that is like an alarm telling us there is an intruder. Embarrassment will make us stop late, but conviction will go deeper to make us seriously pause early.

Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation and were about to say something that was not edifying about a person, something that was gossip, and you felt this feeling, Don’t say it. That’s God’s warning mechanism for a clear conscience.

Don’t finish that statement. Don’t start that joke—it compromises who you are. Don’t . . .

Stay in tune with the whisper of God. That will promote a clear conscience every single day, not just on Sundays at church. When you serve God seven days a week, you fight every day to keep a clear conscience.

 There was a ship that had a regular route from California to Colombia. One day shortly before leaving for California, some drug dealers sent the ship’s captain a message that offered him $500,000 to allow a small shipment of drugs to get through to the United States. The captain replied with a no. On his next three trips, they raised the offer each time until they reached $2 million. He hesitated, and then said, “Maybe.” Then he contacted the FBI, which set up a sting operation, and the drug dealers were arrested. One of the FBI agents asked the captain, “Why did you wait until they got to $2 million before contacting us?” The captain replied, “They were getting close to my price.”

Do you have a price? Is it 20 percent off a coat or a dress using your friend’s employee discount, which belongs to them and not you? But since they said they would buy it and you can pay them back, it must be okay? It isn’t. Don’t violate your conscience. Keep it clear. As A. W. Tozer said: “An honest man is strange when in the midst of dishonest men, but it is a good kind of strangeness.”

The story goes that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels, played a prank on five of the most prominent men in England. He sent an anonymous note to each one that said simply, “All is found out. Flee at once.” Within twenty-four hours, all five men had left the country. Their conscience wasn’t clear.

What if you received that note? Would you have left or stayed?

Day 196

Today’s Reading: 1 Timothy 6

There’s a word in the game of football that keeps enduring—Hut! An article in The New York Times pondered why this word keeps hanging around:

It is easily the most audible word in any football game, a throaty grunt that may be the sport’s most distinguishing sound.

Hut!

It starts almost every play, and often one is not enough. And in an increasingly complex game whose signal-calling has evolved into a cacophony of furtive code words—“Black Dirt!,” “Big Belly!,” “X Wiggle!”—hut, hut, hut endures as the signal to move.

But why? . . .

“I have no idea why we say hut,” said Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce. . . . “I guess because it’s better than yelling, ‘Now,’ or ‘Go.’”

Joe Theismann, the former Washington Redskins quarterback . . . reckons he shouted “hut” more than 10,000 times during games and practices. . . . “I’ve been hutting my way through football for 55 years—but I have no clue why.”

The article conjectures that “hut” may come from the military backgrounds of many early pro football players. But that’s just a guess.

This is similar to what Christians believe and why. Many people have been told what to believe without the why or the rationale behind that belief or doctrine. And it’s been around so long, they don’t have a clue about the explanation.

The word doctrine means a set of beliefs or teachings from the Bible. Why do we believe what we believe? Or are we just saying hut, hut every Sunday and not knowing why? Will we get thousands of years into Christianity since the resurrection of Jesus and be asked why we say and do certain things and not have an answer?

Fortunately, we learn some answers in today’s chapter, where Paul tells us the why. Paul takes a thirty-thousand-foot view of doctrine. He talks about doctrinal diversions but gives us one big statement. Here are Paul’s important words:

"If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain." (1 Timothy 6:3-5) 

There it is: the bombshell phrase, the thirty-thousand-foot view of why we believe: doctrine conforming us to godliness. To know if a belief system is true, the end result of our belief should make us godly, which means it should make us look more like Jesus.

Religion tries to get us to look like the club, the people on Sundays and in the pew. The goal is not to look like Sunday people but to lift our eyes a lot higher to heaven. Our goal is not to look like the person in the pulpit but the One who sits on the throne of heaven. That’s what doctrine is supposed to do. It conforms us to godliness. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, “If your knowledge of doctrine does not make you a great man of prayer, you had better examine yourself again.”

Paul wants to help us better understand how it plays out practically, so he offers the question “Can you be rich and a Christian?” as the test case. The answer is “yes, absolutely.” But Paul reminds us of some things in our lab work:

"Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." (Verses 9-10)

Paul challenges not being rich, but the reason behind why we want to get rich. It’s not the money but the motive that is destructive. If we want money we will fall into temptation and a snare to many foolish desires. That desire is so powerful that people have wandered from the faith.

But Paul says that you can be rich with the right motive. He doesn’t stop there, though. Remember he says doctrine should conform us to godliness. We cannot say to Christians that we need to be rich or we need to be poor. That is religious. We can say to Christians that whether we are rich or poor, we must make sure we look more and more like Jesus.

If it’s the prosperity doctrine telling people that gain is godliness, they are wrong. If it’s another camp telling people that poverty like Mother Teresa is what God wants, that doctrine is just as bad.

Our goal in life is not to look like a rich televangelist or like a woman in India. Our goal is to look like the Man who died for our sins.

Paul continues by saying this to the rich people in regards to godliness:

"Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed." (Verses 17-19)

Those words are really for all of us: Do good. Be rich in good works. Be generous. Be ready to share.

Nineteenth-century preacher J. C. Ryle captured it well when he said: Doctrine is useless if it is not accompanied by a holy life. It is worse than useless: it does positive harm. . . . Something of “the image of Christ,” which can be seen and observed by others in our private life, and habits, and character, and doings.”

Day 195

Today’s Reading: 1 Timothy 5

A truck driver had been hired to deliver fifty penguins to the state zoo. As he was driving his truck through the desert, his truck broke down. Three hours passed, and he began to wonder if his cargo would survive in the desert heat. Finally he was able to wave down another truck. He offered the driver five hundred dollars to take the penguins to the zoo for him, and the other driver agreed.

The next day, the first truck driver finally made it to town. As he drove, he was appalled to see the second truck driver walking down the street with the fifty penguins walking in a single-file line behind him! He slammed on his brakes, jumped out of his truck, and stormed over to the other trucker. “What’s going on?” he shouted. “I gave you five hundred dollars to take these penguins to the zoo!” The other trucker responded, “I did take them to the zoo. And I had some money left over, so now we’re going to see a movie.”

Miscommunication leads to complication and confusion. Just a little miscommunication can mean a lot of problems. In today’s chapter, Paul gives us a lesson on effective communication. As author William H. Whyte so aptly said: “The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it.” Paul wants to remove the illusions for us. And his advice is priceless. He starts off 1 Timothy 5 with explaining how to communicate to people:

Never speak sharply to an older man, but plead with him respectfully just as though he were your own father. Talk to the younger men as you would to much-loved brothers. Treat the older women as mothers, and the girls as your sisters, thinking only pure thoughts about them. (Verses 1-2, TLB)

This passage can so easily be passed over and we miss Paul’s powerful lesson on how to communicate to different groups of people. All people don’t hear the same way; ages and gender contribute to that. Paul tells us the importance of knowing who we are speaking to and how to speak to them. It’s about knowing our audience.

I have had the privilege of doing chapels in different venues. I have spoken to MLB and NFL teams, and in those environments, I make sure I do certain things. The window is short, and I realize for the entire season, this is these professional players’ church. I must not only respect their time but also must make sure I am making use of their time. Here are my two rules in these settings: lift up God’s Word and lift up God’s Son.

First, I always bring a physical Bible and read from it. Why? Isaiah 55:11 says, “My word shall never return void.” That means better than a leadership principle or a pep talk, the best thing I can do for those players is give them a Bible principle, because it will always be productive. Second, I lift up God’s Son. Jesus said in John 12:32, “If I’m lifted up I will draw men to Myself.” When we don’t lift up Jesus, then people are attracted to the wrong thing: us. And we don’t have what they need.

The apostle Paul gave us his important chapel rules as well when we are talking to certain groups of people. He said when we have to have a hard conversation with a person older than we are, harsh and hard talk must be dispensed with and we must take the posture of a son and see that person as a parent. This strategy goes from if we’re a supervisor with senior citizens on our staff, to having to tell our elderly neighbor to keep their dogs off our lawn.

Plead with them as if they were your own father. He says the same treatment goes for elderly women. His plea about how we speak to our peers is much needed also in our generation. Young men talk to other young men as beloved brothers, as though they are our own flesh and blood. And when we see a young lady, we treat them as flesh and blood also and keep our thoughts pure about them. This is profound communication advice from Paul for all of us.

Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest men in the world, was recently with some young entrepreneurs who asked him to share one piece of advice for twentysomethings who’d just graduated from college. He told them: “The one easy way to become worth 50 percent more than you are now—at least—is to hone your communication skills. . . . If you can’t communicate, it’s like winking at a girl in the dark—nothing happens. You can have all the brainpower in the world, but you have to be able to transmit it.”

First Timothy 5 keeps us from winking in the dark. Knowing how to talk to people is an art and hard work, and there is much to consider. According to the Harvard Business Review, “The number one criteria for advancement and promotion for professionals is an ability to communicate effectively.”

Thanks to Paul, you can communicate effectively because of the tool he provided in 1 Timothy 5.

Day 194

Today’s Reading: 1 Timothy 4

How long does it take to become an expert in something? In the Development of Talent Project, Dr. Benjamin Bloom of Northwestern University studied the careers of world-class sculptors, pianists, chess masters, tennis players, swimmers, mathematicians, and neurologists. Across the board, he discovered that it takes between ten to eighteen years before someone can reach world-class competency. The point of the study was that it takes time to be the best at whatever chosen career or path you aspire to.

In Outliers, author and researcher Malcolm Gladwell calls “becoming an expert” the ten-thousand-hour rule. How do you become the greatest band of all time? An expert in rock and roll? You work at it for ten thousand hours. Gladwell speaks about the Beatles seemingly instant success that many think happened on the Ed Sullivan show in one night. Gladwell says that’s not the case. Before landing in America, they’d already been playing together for seven years. It was the band’s ten-thousand hours of playing that made them who they were, not a night on American television.

They’d started out doing one-hour sessions, in which they performed their best numbers, the same ones, at every one. But then they were invited to play in Hamburg, Germany. While there, they played eight hours, seven days a week. Gladwell explains much of their ten-thousand hours:  

The Beatles ended up traveling to Hamburg five times between 1960 and the end of 1962. On the first trip, they played 106 nights, five or more hours a night. On their second trip, they played 92 times. On their third trip, they played 48 times, for a total of 172 hours on stage. The last two Hamburg gigs, in November and December of 1962, involved another 90 hours of performing. All told, they performed for 270 nights in just over a year and a half. By the time they had their first burst of success in 1964, in fact, they had performed live an estimated twelve hundred times. . . . Most bands today don’t perform twelve hundred times in their entire careers. The Hamburg crucible is what set the Beatles apart.

Gladwell considers that the key to success in any field is simply a matter of practicing a specific task that can be accomplished with twenty hours of work a week for ten years.

Paul gave this challenge to Timothy in one word:

Have nothing to do with worldly fables fit only for old women. On the other hand, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. (1 Timothy 4:7-8)

Discipline!

The grandmaster level chess player, a concert pianist, a high-level athlete all have the word discipline in common. The saying goes, “The distance from your dreams to reality is called discipline.” This is why most people miss their dreams. The other side of an undisciplined life is disappointment.

Paul was telling Timothy that the goal in discipline is godliness. Or putting it another way: “godliness” is not automatic. We have to work toward it. Getting born again? Christ did the work for us. Getting godly? We have to discipline ourselves. Listen to the passage from The Message: “Exercise daily in God—no spiritual flabbiness, please! Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever.”

I had a friend tell me one time that he was speaking to the boxing welterweight champion, who told him that he would set his alarm for 1 a.m. every night so he could get up and do one hundred sit-ups and one hundred push-ups. When my friend asked him why he would do that, he said, “I knew I was working while my opponent was sleeping, and I wanted the edge on him.”

That’s where ten-thousand hours comes from. Discipline and effectiveness, discipline and success travel together.

Theologian Henri Nouwen spoke about discipline for our spiritual lives: “Discipline means to prevent everything in our life from being filled up. Discipline means that somewhere we’re not occupied, and certainly not preoccupied. In the spiritual life, discipline means to create that space in which something can happen that we hadn’t planned or counted on.”

Jim Elliot was a modern-day missionary and martyr, who practiced ten-thousand-hour devotional living. He wrote these powerful words: “I may no longer depend on pleasant impulses to bring me before the Lord. I must rather respond to principles I know to be right, whether I feel them to be enjoyable or not.”

Discipline is focus. Discipline is work. Discipline puts blinders to things that are crying for our time and attention. Because Timothy joined Paul before AD 50 and Paul was writing in the early sixties, Timothy was at least in his mid-twenties and could well be in his early or mid-thirties. This term for “youth” (in verse 12) could apply up to the age of forty in that culture, although it usually applied especially to someone under twenty-nine. And the challenge to young Timothy was that he would have a lot of distractions in life, so it was important to get focused on the right thing.

Paul challenged Timothy to make his discipline not simply about going to Planet Fitness; reminding him that disciplining ourselves physically isn’t wrong or bad—it’s just that there’s a better discipline, and that is about pursuing eternal things. Listen to Paul’s admonishment again: “Workouts in the gymnasium are useful, but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both today and forever” (verse 8, MSG).

No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, and disciplined. Gary Player, one of the greatest golfers in the world, was known for his discipline. When he was 80 years old, he still got up every morning at 5 a.m. and did 1,300 sit-ups. One day while hitting off the practice tees, he heard someone say, “I wish I could hit a ball like that.” He turned around and said to the onlooker, “No, you don’t. You know what it takes to hit a golf ball like [I do]? It takes getting up at 5:00 a.m. every morning to hit 1,000 balls until my hand bleeds, then I go to the clubhouse to bandage my hand, then go back and hit another 1,000 balls.” 

We want the results but not the discipline. Godliness is the goal for us, says Paul, and discipline is the key.

Day 193

Today’s Reading: 1 Timothy 3

One of the toughest tasks for a church is choosing a pastor. One church was in this painful process, as the board kept rejecting applicant after applicant. Finally, frustrated with the board’s No one is good enough attitude, one of the members submitted a bogus application to see what the board would do with it:

"Gentlemen: Understanding your pulpit is vacant, I should like to apply for the position. I have many qualifications. I’ve been a preacher with much success and also some success as a writer. Some say I’m a good organizer. I’ve been a leader most places I’ve been. I’m over fifty years of age. I have never preached in one place for more than three years. In some places I have left town after my work caused riots and disturbances. I must admit I have been in jail three or four times, but not because of any real wrongdoing. My health is not too good, though I still get a great deal done. The churches I have preached in have been small, though located in several large cities. I’ve not gotten along well with religious leaders in towns where I have preached. In fact, some have threatened me and even attacked me physically. I am not too good at keeping records. I have been known to forget whom I have baptized. However, if you can use me, I shall do my best for you."

The board member looked at the others on the committee. “Well, what do you think? Shall we call him?”

The board was appalled. “Call an unhealthy, trouble-making, absent-minded ex-jailbird? Are you crazy? Who signed the application? Who had such colossal nerve?

The board member looked at them. “It’s signed, the apostle Paul.’”

Drop the mic. I think we have gone adrift from what a Christian leader looks like and have bought into the lie of what we see in the media. In today’s chapter, Paul gives criteria and qualities of what a pastor and deacon should have:

A pastor must be a good man whose life cannot be spoken against. He must have only one wife, and he must be hard working and thoughtful, orderly, and full of good deeds. He must enjoy having guests in his home and must be a good Bible teacher. He must not be a drinker or quarrelsome, but he must be gentle and kind and not be one who loves money. He must have a well-behaved family, with children who obey quickly and quietly. For if a man can’t make his own little family behave, how can he help the whole church?

The pastor must not be a new Christian because he might be proud of being chosen so soon, and pride comes before a fall. (Satan’s downfall is an example.) Also, he must be well spoken of by people outside the church—those who aren’t Christians—so that Satan can’t trap him with many accusations and leave him without freedom to lead his flock.

The deacons must be the same sort of good, steady men as the pastors. (1 Timothy 3:2-8, TLB)

If this is the criteria for hiring a pastor or selecting a deacon, I think we have been using the wrong grid and criteria. Some places have used the vote method instead of following this passage. Titus 1 adds a few more things, and they both comprise a powerful grid for pastoral leadership.

Paul lists twenty-five qualifications. Of the twenty-five, only one deals with preaching. Several translations, including the King James Version, says the pastor must be “apt to teach.” I love that word apt. It sounds like he doesn’t have to be an amazing preacher. Why? Because there are twenty-four other things churches have to look at. If this list is a good grid to start, that means “communicating” is 1/25 of the pastoral skill set, which is 4 percent. If the main thing we do in choosing a pastor is simply listen to their sermons, we may be in for a train wreck. Remember, I am speaking as a pastor. Preaching is hard work, but so are the other twenty-four things. I’m afraid we have exalted and been in awe of that 4 percent in pastors, but neither them nor churches ever examined the other 96 percent.

Think about some of the other things pastors are challenged with keeping in order:

• being free of greed

• keeping their households the priority

• being the husband of one wife

• being self-controlled

• remaining above reproach

• being prudent 

• being hospitable.

Think of the challenge your leaders have to face to be an effective husband, father, and minister all at the same time. How do they schedule all of this? I have always said it’s harder to be a pastor than a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. You can be a CEO and have a messed-up marriage. You can be a CEO and have messed-up kids. You can be a CEO and have a messed-up life. You can be a millionaire, an entrepreneur, a successful businessman and have everything in your life falling apart yet still have a job. This is what makes ministry different. If your personal life, your marriage, and your children are messed up, then you’re out of a job. In fact, if only one of these areas are messed up, your job is in jeopardy. Your pastor has got to give his attention to three priority areas of his life.

Therefore we need to find a way to help our pastors and leaders and not criticize them. So as a pastor and on behalf of my fellow pastors, let me say this: we need your help and we need your support. When someone says we are dropping the ball in one of those areas, it would help us if we can have a support system who says, Let’s pray for our pastor and find a way we can make him the best he can be.

Every Sunday will not be a Billy Graham message. At times our marriages will need an oil change to get better. And our children will not always be the poster kids from child expert Kevin Lehman’s books.

When you hire us, help us.

When you are disappointed by us, help us.

When we don’t meet your expectations, help us.

How can you help your pastor? Yes, pray. And you can do more. Just to hear a word of encouragement or a board finding a way to give a pastor’s family time off to recharge would be amazing. Remember that pastors are never off the clock. So they need your support.

Day 192

Today’s Reading: 1 Timothy 2

I want to help you get involved in politics.

I knew that would get your attention. When it comes to being a Republican or a Democrat, let’s be careful before labeling ourselves. I am of the school of C. S. Lewis, who said these important words about politics: “He who surrenders himself without reservation to the temporal claims of a nation, or a party, or a class is rendering to Caesar that which, of all things, most emphatically belongs to God: himself.”

Our heart, emotions, and energies first belong to God. We must be careful of giving these to a candidate to stay in office or to get one in office and give God less. So what part do we play as Christians in politics? There is a part we play, according to Paul, and its outcome is best for us:

"The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live. He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to get to know the truth we’ve learned." (1 Timothy 2:1-4, MSG)

Wow! Our involvement is first on our knees.

I am grateful we have Christians in government. I am grateful we have chaplains in Congress. I am thankful we have men and women fighting for godly principles. But the best way we unify the church is not around a candidate but around a king—the King. The way we unify the church politically is by getting the church to pray. And notice, Paul was saying for those in office not for those to beat those who are in office. Whether or not we agree with their politics or policies, our responsibility is to pray for our leaders in local, in state, and even in the White House and on Capitol hill.

Paul says, “This is the way God wants us to live.” What is our prayer? We are first to pray that they rule well. And if they don’t, then pray more. The Passion Translation says it like this: “Pray for every political leader and representative, so that we would be able to live tranquil, undisturbed lives, as we worship the awe-inspiring God with pure hearts. It is pleasing to our Savior-God to pray for them” (verses 2-3).

We pray for them “so that we would be able to live tranquil, undisturbed lives as we worship God.” We are praying for our leaders so our lives can find peace and quiet instead of contention and division. Our government may be in the condition it’s in because of the condition of prayer in the church. Call a prayer meeting for your church to pray for your local, state, and national leaders and see how many show up. That may be the reason we are in trouble—not because of a Republican president or a Democrat Congress or vice versa, but because of a non-praying church.

A prayerless church messes up our government more than the government messes up the government. Don’t dismiss this. Why is this country everything but quiet when it comes to the political landscape? Because this prayer has not been answered; because this prayer has not been offered. The part we play in politics is to pray for our leaders—not the leaders we wish were there and not just the leaders we agree with. Let’s for a moment remove the adjectives before the word Christian. There is no such thing as a Republican Christian or a Democrat Christian or an Independent Christian or a Libertarian Christian, we are Christians! Which means we pray regardless of the election and its outcome.

Why do we pray for our leaders? Paul says pray for this outcome: “This is the way our Savior God wants us to live. He wants not only us but everyone saved” (verses 3-4, MSG). The “everyone” here are the politicians. We pray for them two ways—that they would rule well and that they would become Christ-followers. That must be how we as Christians are first involved in politics. Anything else is a distraction and a disturbance. As W. Ian Thomas says, “Make sure it is God’s trumpet you are blowing—if it’s only yours, it won’t wake the dead; it will simply disturb the neighbours.”

I want to wake the dead in DC. I want them to find Jesus.

Many years ago, government officials in The Hague invited Van Courtonne, a famous preacher in Paris, to preach in the State Church chapel. He agreed under the condition that all the government officials had to attend. They agreed, so he went and preached on “The Ethiopian” in Acts 8. Remember the Ethiopian eunuch was a government official on assignment. His sermon contained four points about the Ethiopian government official.

Remember the story? The Ethiopian had just visited Jerusalem and left with a scroll from Isaiah 53. Philip came alongside his chariot and explained what the man was reading. The government official became a Christian and ordered the chariot to stop and be baptized.

Now, here were Van Courtonne’s points:

1. The Ethiopian was a government official who read the Bible: something rare.

2. He was a government official who acknowledged his ignorance: something rarer still.

3. He was a government official who asked a lesser person for instruction: something extremely rare.

4. He was a government official who got saved: the rarest thing of all.

Let’s get involved in politics. So let’s get on our knees and pray.