Continuing our series on leading like Jesus, looking at Paul as an example, and in reading through chapter 2 of 2 Timothy, the word that comes to mind for me is 'focus'. Paul is trying to focus Timothy on the mission, and urging him to push other ideas and thoughts and distractions out of his mind. A great trait of a leader is the ability to hold onto the mission, to see it through the clouds and the chaos and the distractions, and to keep moving forward in spite of the fact that he/she may not have a clue what to do. Paul tells Timothy to focus on righteousness, faith, love and peace - when all else fails, when we don't know what to do, a great question that a great leader asks is "What does love require of me right now?".

It makes me think a little about right now, when we don't know necessarily what to do as a church. Well, if each of us would ask that question, and would follow Paul's request of Timothy, then we would be positioning ourselves well to have God work in and through us...sometimes the only thing we can see to do is to put one foot in front of the other, acting in love (and righteousness, faith, and peace) in this moment, as we await clarity about the bigger plan.

I guess, in summary, we could say that leaders typically strive to maintain a vision for the future...but when they can't see as far out, for whatever reason, they keep moving forward regardless. That's our calling as well.

So, we are in this series called “Lead Like Jesus”, and today we get a fabulous example of leadership.

It’s interesting to see where this verse falls in relationship to the chapter in which it sits, and actually, it is the end of about two chapters of miracles that Jesus is doing.  It is only a few verses after Jesus invites Matthew into his inner circle. When I think about the verse, which reads: Matt 9:36 “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd”, I think the take away is that Jesus, and we as leaders, should be training ourselves to spot need, and especially those needs to which we can minister.  It’s one thing to have influence, and it’s another to constantly look for ways to use my influence in a way that benefits those around me.  If you think about how Jesus used his power and his influence, it’s hard to find an example of a time he used it for himself. That makes me think about myself, and it reminds me how selfish I can be with my own power and influence.

Today, my prayer is that I would seek and find and leverage an opportunity to use my influence. I’m going to make an intentional effort to use it in my family specifically, because that’s where I have the greatest direct impact.

I really hate to do this, but I am going to change gears right in the middle of reading Romans. I am in a men’s group with my church and we have just started a reading plan together, so I want to spend my time focused on that. For the next three weeks, I’m going to work through that plan as my morning devotional and we will follow that in this podcast. This is a daily devotional available through the Bible app, and I am posting a link to that application as well as this study in these show notes.

The devotional scripture for today is Lamentations 3:22-23. For contacts, this devotional series is titled “Lead Like Jesus”.

Full disclosure, I am not typically a fan of topical readings like this, I generally prefer reading through an entire book of the Bible and enjoying reading the background, understanding the author, and all of that, but I don’t want that to stop me from reading and enjoying God‘s word in various ways, so here we go!

For today, here are our verses:

22 The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

23  they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

The verses that are set up for this devotional really mark a turning point in this chapter, this lament. There is pain and suffering and frustration and then we get to what I think this devotional is really getting it, we see the heart of this author come out.

In times of struggle, frustration, challenge, what is that rock that I lean on? The author exposes himself right here in verse 22: and it’s a good picture for us, a great example. The Lord‘s love never ceases, nor his mercies, and they are new every morning; he is always faithful.

There is a great reminder, and if that’s the default position that I have, surely I am then beginning to lead in a manner similar to Jesus.

The Bible App: https://www.youversion.com/the-bible-app/

I read this section in 3 parts.  First is v18-25 where I am reminded of Genesis, and of the idea that when God had the world just the way HE wanted it, it was just the way WE wanted it too.  Then we messed it up when we introduced sin.  And, since then, we have been ‘groaning’, in Paul’s words, to get it back.  We know, intuitively, that things aren’t the way they ought to be...we don’t have to be taught that, it is just a sense that most of us have.  I think that is a little of God in us, that sense that the world just isn’t quite right.

Then I see v26-30 as a section that reminds me that I really don’t know what I don’t know...I pray for things, I ask for things, and I long for things...but quite often, I just don’t know what I am asking for, what I truly need, or even what I truly want.  The Holy Spirit actually stands between me and God and intercedes to help me in that way...helping my prayers be heard, but also helping my prayers to be relevant.  It reminds me that there are tons and tons of prayers that are being answered on a daily basis in my life for which I am just, basically, unaware.  God is praying to God for me.  That’s pretty awesome!

And then the last section...v31-39, which is probably some of the most quoted New Testament text.  It is an inspiring section for sure...and it encourages us that God’s got this...God is in control...and that He has His hand in everything at all times.  Our job is to position ourselves to be use by God, to allow ourselves to follow.  And Paul inserts one of my lines of logic from an evangelical perspective - if God raised Jesus from the dead, let’s be honest, what reason would we have to doubt anything else that He says is can do, has done, or will do?  I mean, really...conquering death means that Jonah and the Whale, Parting the Red Sea, miraculous healings, etc...is all that actually hard to believe IF He raised a man from the dead?  It is all about Jesus and the resurrection, and that’s the point.

Today just reminds me of the many ways that God has put his fingerprints on us and on this earth.  Not seeing God in the world is really just an error of not looking.  I pray that, today, I would see Him in my daily life, and that I would feel that refreshing sense when it happens, just to remind me that He is with me and that He is always in charge.

Short reading today, but a big idea, the idea that we are in debt as a part of our being saved. However, it’s not a debt that we could ever fully repay. It’s also not a debt that God is holding over us for repayment either. It is simply a debt that serves to inform how we live our lives daily.

Here is another way to think about it. Imagine someone gives you an incredible gift; something beyond what you would’ve imagined or ever really deserved from them.  I can remember when my parents gave me my first acoustic guitar. I don’t take credit for earning that guitar. In fact, the only thing I get when I think about that guitar is a sense of gratitude. It was a gift to me. I think our debt to Christ should give us a similar feeling; gratitude.

Gratitude is the sign of recognition related to the receipt of a gift. Gratitude is a marker that there is an imbalance tilted in my favor.

I don’t know my parents the money for the guitar, nor God anything for his sons death…not technically.

But, a good son to his parents and a good son to God would respond by living in recognition of that gift and harnessing that gratitude.

How do we do that? These verses make mention of living a spirit-led life again, just as we discussed yesterday, so that’s how we thank God. It’s not how we repay God, but how we think God.  God wants our thanks, not our repayment.

Today, I am praying that I would feel that gratitude, that I would FEEL thankful and that it would encourage an extra act of grace or love.  I pray that as I do as God says, I will begin to see as God sees, and the gratitude that is rising up in me will lead me to more naturally do as God says even more.

I have focused a lot on the clarity of Paul’s statements, that we ARE free from the judgement of God based on our own sin...that our judgement is based on Christ’s sacrifice once we place our faith in Him.  And Paul hasn’t gotten to the real application section of this manuscript yet, so he is still laying the groundwork for what’s to come.  Today, though, he gives us a little bit of application...a little nugget.

v5: For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on things of the spirit.

So, we should set our minds on the things of the spirit.  But what are those things?  Well, Paul doesn’t give us that list here, but he certainly gives it to us elsewhere...one of the best examples is Galatians:

5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

So, we can go ahead and adopt these behaviors intentionally now.  In doing so, here is what ‘living in the spirit’ seems to mean to me, based on my experience.  As I do as God says, I tend to see as God sees.  As I begin to see as God sees, I more and more do as God says, but it becomes less deliberative.  In other words, doing intentionally begets seeings which begets doing inadvertently.

Another way to think about it is with an analogy stool that I once heard.  If your stool has 3 legs, and you tilt it so you have one off of the ground and you are then leaning on 2 legs plus yours, then you aren’t fully ‘trusting’ the stool.  You are maintaining your own control, to some extent.  But really giving it all to the stool would be picking your leg up off of the ground and letting the stool fully support your weight.  Many times, that’s a picture our walk with God...we keep a foot on the ground.  Living in the spirit means picking that last leg up, letting God carry us, doing as He says and trusting that He will carry us when we don’t feel like we can do it any longer.

My prayer today is that I would sense, in the moment, an opportunity to ‘let go and let God’; that I would see the opportunity and that I would take it.  In doing so, I hope to experience God more intimately.

I really appreciate how Paul frames up sin in this chapter...not just as a temptation, or not just a poor choice, but as an enemy.  Sin is an active adversary in our lives.  And it lurks right there at the point of decision - ready to pounce when we are about to make the RIGHT decision.

I typically hone in on verses 15-20 in this chapter, but today something else jumped out at my - the verses right after those.

Look at v21 - “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.”  Isn’t that always the case?  This sounds like a romanticized version of the good angel on one shoulder and bad on the other.  And that’s life.

I am glad that God comes to us through the Holy Spirit, to help in waging war against sin, and against evil.  I am so thankful that God sees me as a saint who occasionally sins rather than a sinner who has to make my way back to Him...I couldn’t make it.

The other thing that I think about when reading this, which is a little less ‘chipper’, is the finality of this relationship with sin...it doesn’t stop.  This is life - working to get through sin.  We can conquer one battle against sin, only to find another.  It just isn’t going to change on this side of Heaven.  So, I should consider that a reminder, and should consider the fact that humility had better become a close friend...I am not going to graduate from needing it anytime soon.

That’s my prayer today...that I would embrace this relationship with sin, that I would see it as a road to God, as a struggle that helps me grow in my relationship with Him, and that I would continue to grow more and more humble as I recognize this never-ending need for God’s grace.

Here we see a beautiful description of what most evangelical churches use as a model for baptism.  In many churches, as a person being baptized is lowered into the water and raised back out, the person conducting the baptism with say, “Buried with Christ, and raised to walk in the newness of life”...this is a root for that.  This chapter describes the true essence of this kind of baptism.  Now, I recognize that stands in contrast to the type of baptism where a baby is sprinkled with water, or something like that...but I am not going to get into the different methods and thoughts on baptism here.  I am just pointing out that this chapter really illustrates the imagery associated with the type of baptism that is typically referred to as ‘immersion’.  And this gives us a real sense of what it looks like to accept Christ as our Savior, as our ‘stand-in’ for the punishment we deserve but won’t have to serve.  We become dead to the ULTIMATE effect of sin - which is death.  But, we aren’t immune from the effects of sin in life, which is still ‘death’, but it is death of relationships, death of our body in that we can’t live forever...sin causes death and destruction.  That’s why we are taught, by Jesus, that when we sin, we are to go to THE PERSON to see restoration.  Yes we should pray to God, but we should always seek restoration to the people who our sin affects...because there are always (in some fashion) other people being hurt.  We are already good with God.  We don’t need to sacrifice to Him anymore...we need to sacrifice to each other, which calls for humility, grace, patience, kindness, unconditional love...you know, the hard stuff.

Paul then goes on to teach us the same idea, but from a different angle.  here that we aren’t slaves to righteousness...meaning, we don’t have to rely on our own goodness to be right with God.  And thank God for that!  That is what the Law was all about, in the Old Testament...we mess up, and then we do things to get right with God - sacrifices, rituals, etc.  Well, not anymore.  Now we are right with God simply by faith...faith in the fact that Jesus was the sacrifice, Jesus takes place of the rituals.

And, the last thing I will say for today is that right at the beginning of the chapter today, Paul points out the flaw in one of the most typical responses we all have thought or that we think of at some point, which is, “Well, why behave then?!?”.  And we’ve talked about this - but ‘behaving’ is really not at issue...the question is really whether or not any particular behavior is helpful or not.  And how do we determine if it is helpful or not?  Well, does it make us better?  Does it further our influence with others?  Does it help us in achieving the mission for which we were created by God?  If the answer is ‘no’, then it shouldn’t be a part of our life.  It’s that simple.  But we don’t like that, because there are some of us that really just like to play at the boundaries...but that goes back to control, and being willing to submit to God’s will rather than our own will for our lives.  ...and, as you can see, we can go in circles with all of this, which is why there are 27 manuscripts in the New Testament; this needs a lot of thought!  HAHA

For today though, my prayer is that I would lean into that baptism idea, that I would feel the freedom of choice, and that I would have the courage to take the steps that God puts before me, to understand and to grow into my purpose.

One of the key teachings that Paul puts forward, and that we’ve discussed here several times, and that the church STILL struggles with, to-this-day, is found right in today’s reading in verse 20:

“Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, ...”

Why did God give us the Law?  Why the 10 Commandments?  Do they still apply today?  The teaching is crystal clear on this, but we Christian traditions have mucked this up a little.  The 10 Commandments aren’t for you and for me - they aren’t given to us to follow as Law.  They are no more applicable to us than the rest of the law.  They weren’t written for us, they weren’t meant for us, and they don’t apply to us directly.  That is the bottom line.

If you are someone who’s had the law lorded over you, as if it is a law meant for you and that you are supposed to follow, then I am sorry.  That’s not correct theology.  That’s Christian leaders using the Bible as a whip rather than as an invitation.  If it happened to you during your youth, I especially apologize because you had no way to investigate and rebut that kind of treatment.  That has been going on for years and it is one of them major detractors from the flourishing of the church.

That being said, just because the Law wasn’t written for you and for me, it doesn’t mean that the law isn’t helpful.  Read it...no the law that the Jews put in place with 600+ rituals and steps and all of that, but the 10 Commandments.  There is good stuff in there.  For instance, the Sabbath...that is something I don’t always follow that I SHOULD always follow.  I have lived long enough to recognize the wisdom in that command.

Paul teaches in other places, and we’ll get to this, that though the law doesn’t directly apply to him, it doesn’t mean he should live apart from it completely.  He says that things in this world aren’t technically ‘off limits’, but that his determination as to whether or not to engage with them isn’t on that basis, it is under the basis of whether or not they are helpful.  Are they helpful to his mission and his purpose, which God has given him...that’s the better question.  Frankly, that’s a harder question to answer; it is personal, it is customized for each person, and (imagine this) it requires a personal connection with God in order to really know the truth that applies to each of us.

Today I am reminded that we really are free from the Law and from the 10 Commandments.  And, because of that truth, we can turn to them and we can appreciate the wisdom that is contained in these ancient teachings, and we can adopt them willingly, because we know they were given to the Israel for her benefit, and given to me for mine - they aren’t meant to be a means of coercion from the church.

This chapter is loaded this things to discuss and to study, so we will take it in a few pieces; today, verses 1 through 11.

Think about the depth of these verses:

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings (our struggles, our constantly working to make ourselves better, to conquer sin, to be the person God calls us to be), knowing that suffering produces endurance (in sticking with that struggle, we develop muscles of endurance physically, mentally, spiritually, and we can go longer, fight harder, engage more deeply with God), and endurance produces character (that set of traits that makes us more like Jesus...we move closer and closer to being a reflection of Jesus in the world and to the world), and character produces hope (the faith and the trust that God is who He says He is and will do what He says He’ll do), and hope does not put us to shame (meaning, hope doesn’t leave us wanting...why?...2 reasons:), because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (1 - meaning God will be with us and gives us strength and help). (and, 2 -...) For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly (...that’s me, that’s you, that’s all of us, the ‘ungodly’...God not only gave us the Holy Spirit, but He gave us the resurrection...an actual event, which to this day is very hard to historically dispute, which is why attacks against our faith tend NOT to be focused on this event).

Then Paul makes the logical argument that it doesn’t make sense for a person to die for sinners, it doesn’t make sense to die for people who’ve rejected you, beaten you, ignored you...why would a person do that?  Only one of two reasons - they are insane or, perhaps, because there is a purpose for it...and the only reasonable purpose we can assume is the purpose that is stated - that this sacrifice by a dude who didn’t deserve it is a stand-in for us, for what we actually deserve.   That’s awesome.

For today, I am just reminded of that process that Paul gives us - that suffering brings endurance and endurance character, and character hope...that this is the process through which we develop.  I wish it could be suffering straight to hope, but it takes time to learn to trust God.  It takes reps.  My spiritual journey definitely demonstrates that...time has certainly help me go deeper, to peel back the layers to my faith, and to develop a stronger hope.  I pray that I remember that when it is hard, and that I remain committed to that journey.