January 3, 2024
Author: Pastor Gordon Cook
January 03, 2024
As you know 1 and 2 Timothy are the two last epistles written by the
Apostle Paul. He is sitting in a jail cell and he's pretty sure he's not
going to get out. But the letters are not filled with fear or despair
or hopelessness, but rather triumphant faith and confidence. He knows
he's run that race, he's about to finish that race and receive his
eternal award.
1 Timothy 4:6-8, “If you put these things before
the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained
in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have
followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train
yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value,
godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present
life and also for the life to come.”
I was thinking as we face
the New Year (this is the first Wednesday of the New Year), that people
often pull out their calendars and begin to plan for vacations,
sometimes appointments, conferences and sometimes they make plans for
career changes or buying a new house. Some make changes with regard to
their own personal lives; they might want to change their diet, they
might do some intermittent fasting this time of the year. They say that
this is the biggest time of the year for fitness health clubs. People
join these places to lose weight, to increase their strength and
flexibility. And you'll notice here in that portion of scripture that I
read, the Apostle Paul advocates physical exercise, he's not against
anybody engaged in physical exercise. Some even think that he was
something of a marathon runner because he picks up that image several
times in his writings; he says, “Bodily training has some value.” But
what is very clear from the passage is that he puts priority upon the
spiritual exercise, training for godliness. There is nothing wrong with
physical exercise, but what he wants us to prioritize and give ourselves
to is training for godliness. And as we think of a New Year, what are
some of the exercises we can incorporate to help us get stronger
spiritually or mature in godliness. I read a recent blog on Desiring God
by Dr. Donald Whitney and he has ten questions that we might want to
ask as we begin a new year. I boiled them down to seven. Here are seven
questions that you might want to ask as you think of the New Year in
terms of spiritual godliness; the kind of exercise program that might
help you grow as a Christian.
1. What is the one thing you can do
this year to increase your enjoyment of God? The Bible does talk about
enjoying God, not just knowing God, but delighting in God, Psalm 37.
Psalm 58, “Then delight yourself in the Lord.” Dr. Whitney says that
enjoyment of God comes primarily from our use of the means of grace and
he mentioned specifically reading our Bibles. Then he makes a
distinction between reading your Bible and meditating upon your Bible.
What's the difference? Well, meditation involves deeper thinking, it
often involves reflecting. You can say it in terms of a food analogy, it
involves digesting or chewing your food as opposed to just swallowing
your food. You are seeking to meditate, think more about what you're
reading.
2. What impossible prayer can you pray? Think of William
Carey that father of modern missions. He said, “Expect great things
from God.” Remember, he is a God who can do the impossible. Ephesians
3:20, “God can do far above what we could ever ask or think.” Pray those
impossible prayers. If God be God, he can solve any problem, he can heal any disease, he can save any sinner. So what impossible prayer can you pray for 2024?
3.
What's the most important thing you can do to improve your family life?
Dr. Whitney says, “If your family doesn't practice family worship,
here's the best recommendation I would make that you do ten minutes a
day: simply read the Bible, pray, sing together. It doesn't really
require much preparation. Just have family worship. Commit yourself to
family worship.”
4. What's the single biggest time waster in
your life and how can you redeem the time? I thought of Ephesians 5:16,
“Making the best use of the time because the days are evil.” The Old
King James talks about redeeming the time.
5. What's the most
helpful new way you can strengthen your church? How can you make your
church stronger? He mentions praying, serving, giving, are the three
ways in which you can make your church stronger.
6. What one
thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year? He doesn't
give these, but these thoughts came to my mind. You can pray written
prayers that might help your prayer life. You can go to the Valley of
Vision or some other books that might just help you pray better. Just
read those written prayers. You can follow the ACTS pattern, adoration,
confession, thanksgiving, supplication. That's a good structure you can
incorporate. You can make use of the Lord's Prayer, that's a prayer for
us to pattern our prayers after. You could also meet with one of the men
or one of the ladies and begin to pray together. You could give
yourself to more intercessory prayer by using the church directory. You
can also pray as you read the Bible, not just after you finish reading
the Bible, and before you read the Bible, but even as you read the
Bible.
7. Is there somebody unsaved that you know that you
haven't prayed for before or you haven't prayed regularly. It could be a
friend at work, it could be a distant relative, a neighbor, a brother, a
sister, father, mother. I think something else we could add to that is
that we certainly could pray that God would increase our burden for the
lost sinners in terms of 2024.
So these are the seven questions
we can begin to think about and even pray as we think of exercising or
increasing our godliness: increasing our faith, our love, our commitment
to Christ’s church and even the patterns in our prayer life and our
family life.
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