Christian Devotional – July 13, 2022

Teaching and Training, Day 1

Paul is training his disciple, Timothy. We get a chance to study through and understand how to live the Christian life directly from Paul himself. Read 1 Timothy 1:1-5.

As we read these verses, we see Paul’s encouraging and uplifting introduction to the young Timothy. We see verse 5 that explains Paul’s goal for him which is love, a pure conscience, and a sincere faith. But I never noticed verse 4 before. As we see in verse 5, Paul mentions that the goal of his command is to create these things in Timothy’s life. But what was the command? To see Paul’s command to Timothy, we have to read verse 4.

Paul commanded Timothy to stay where he was and to endure the difficult challenges that he was facing with the people that were in the area he was in. Timothy had to address false teaching and he had to ensure that people stayed focused on God.

This is no easy task. When things are challenging and difficult, it’s easy to want to leave and run away. What’s more, Timothy had to deal with people and sometimes people can be the most challenging part of any ministry that God gives us. Still, Paul’s command to Timothy was to stay and address the issues and the reason Paul gave him that goal was to create these amazing qualities and characteristics both in him and in the people that were in that church there.

Are you tempted to run right now? Are you dealing with difficult people or difficult circumstances, or even difficult ministries? Paul gave Timothy a ministry that was going to be challenging and difficult for him, but his command was for him to stay and to follow Christ through the difficulties, not to avoid them. Are we following following the command and staying even in the challenging and difficult times?