WORKS IN PROGRESS

Can I pray for you in any way?

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

1 Timothy 4:15-16

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

The Lord isn’t finished with us yet.

It’s true as I write this and you read it. We’re still alive on this earth and we can see this is good news for any number of reasons but I believe the main one is that we get the opportunity for God to make us better than we were yesterday.

You see, none of us are perfect, despite our greatest attempts to maybe be that way. When it comes to the standard of Jesus who was perfectly righteous, something no mere human being will ever be, there’s always room for improvement as we strive to be like Him as Christians.

In other words, we are all works in progress.

This is the message we see the Apostle Paul convey to his missionary partner, Timothy, who was pastoring the church in Ephesus. Look at what he wrote in the final verses of 1 Timothy, chapter 4:

Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. Vv. 15-16

Paul had just shared a series of exhortations in this chapter with Timothy which included the following:

Identify, and expose false teachings, while rejecting them.

Put your hope in the living God, the Savior of all people.

Set the example as a Christian leader in the matters of speech and conduct with love, faith, and purity.

Preach and teach the scriptures publicly.

Don’t neglect the special gift of ministry responsibility God has provided.

The Apostle wanted Timothy to be successful in his church leadership for the cause of the Gospel and knew what it would take to get there. If Timothy would just follow the prescribed guidelines and continue to uphold the qualifications of his position (1 Timothy 3:1-7), then he would grow day by day in his ministry and be effective in helping the lost find their salvation through Jesus.

Perhaps in these exhortations, we can find our own pathway to being better Christians with every day that God provides us.

We should identify, expose, and reject false teachings. We can do this by knowing the scriptures ourselves and seeking the discernment of the Holy Spirit.

We should put our hope in the living God, the Savior of all people. Our Lord is alive and ever present with us, constantly reminding us of the hope we have now and forever, in Him.

We need to strive every day to let others see Jesus in the way we live, committed to setting an example in everything we say and do out of love, faith, and purity for others to follow.

We need to proclaim the Word of God publicly, sharing the scriptures with everyone. We should speak the language of the Bible to others as easily as we communicate with them in our native tongue.

And we need to seek, realize, and use the spiritual gifts that the Lord has given us to serve Him and others. We all have gifts to use and we are called to active, not passive, service.

Friends, every day is a chance to become better in Christ than we were yesterday. For we are all works in progress and through this message, we see intentional actions we can carry out to become better Christians.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.