1 Timothy 6:11-16

1 Timothy 6:11-16  But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.  Fight the good fight of the faith.  Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.  In the sight of God, who gives life to everything, and of Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which God will bring about in his own time — God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.   To him be honor and might forever.  Amen. 

Paul was encouraging Timothy to persevere in his walk of faith.  There is an indication in the Bible that Timothy experienced persecution.  (Hebrews 13:23)  We see Paul in the above passage exhorting Timothy to fight the good fight of the faith all the way to the end.  Paul reminds him to take hold of the eternal life, to remember he is living a life that extends beyond this life because of his confession that Christ is Lord, God's Son.  He wants Timothy not to retreat in any way from his confession just because he is under stress from the world.  I charge you to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Otherwise, Paul urges Timothy to endure to the end, whether his life is taken by violence or not and regardless of life's circumstances.  Paul wants Timothy to remember that he is serving the immutable, eternal God who lives in unapproachable light and who is the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Sometimes our testimonies become a little weak when we face trials, sicknesses, or persecution.  We wonder where God is.  We wonder why we have to cope with such adverse happenings in our lives.  We wonder, why did sickness visit my door?  Why did the death of my loved one happen too soon?  Why do people at work shun me?  The list can go on and on.  We become whiners rather than stalwart soldiers of the cross.  We sit in the background merely watching life rather than participating wholeheartedly as God's representatives.  Our Christian testimony is infiltrated with doubt. Rather than spreading the "Good News," we sit pondering: Is God a good God?  Is God there at all?  Paul reminds Timothy that he is serving the one and only true God, the God who is so grand, so inconceivable that no man has ever seen him or can even fully imagine his greatness.  

Sometimes we need a fresh reminder of the God we serve.  We need to be reminded that He is timeless, that 2,000 years from Christ's death is not even registered in God's timeless domain.  We need to be reminded our existence itself and the material world we see that includes ALL OF THE galaxies are but a whisper in his thoughts.  Compared with him, nothing is great in his domain: space that is so immense that it is measured by time is meager in his sight.  As finite beings we cannot begin to conceive of the immutable, the eternal, but that is where God rests.  But praise God, we can know his nature, for Christ is the full embodiment of God himself.  We can know God loves us with an eternal, abiding love.  We know He will give anything for us, even his Son, and we can know our salvation is assured IN HIS SON, CHRIST JESUS.  This is Paul's reminder to Timothy: Finish the fight Timothy!  And for each of us, Paul is saying, Finish the fight!  For there is laid up for each believer who by faith endures to the end, a crown of righteousness that does not fade away, a crown engraved with the words GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT TO THE MOST HIGH.  All of heaven will know that we trusted in our Lord and fought the fight of faith to the end, the key to eternity with Jesus Christ our Lord.