Doctors receive a lot of education. Rightly so. They practice medicine with the aim of helping and treating diseases and ailments of the body and mind. I want my doctors to be well-read, well-studied and diligent life-long learners. After all, they are to assess my health and well-being. In other words, I would like them to have applied themselves well and studied very hard in medical school. I don’t want a doctor who had the typical study habits of a high school student. I want my doctors to have advanced study skills.

Do your spiritual study habits and skills reflect the advanced study of doctors or the distracted study of a typical high school student? Too many of us today are easily distracted. We are losing the ability to think deeply and concentrate intently. With technology and social media controversies merely fingertips away deep concentration and application of God’s Word is often neglected.

While the categories and controversies might be different, Timothy’s challenge was no less important. Legalism and theological minutia were distracting the leaders of the church and tempting Timothy to be distracted. Paul admonished his protégé to point out the truth, give attention to teaching the word and train others in the truth. Paul taught that staying the course of Christian ministry was hard work that required discipline, effort and attention. As Paul finished this thought to Timothy, he encouraged him to pay close attention to himself and to his teaching.

Paul’s advice is astonishingly simple and powerful. If we are to stay the course in our ministries and callings, we will not do so by flirting with controversies, by succumbing to distractions or by getting too close to temptations. Rather, staying the course requires attentiveness to our theology and to our Christian living.

Many begin the Christian journey well. But those that end well are attentive to God’s Word in study and application.

Sunday School Lesson for the Biblical Recorder originally published here
Focal Passage 1 Timothy 4:1-13

One of the greatest tragedies experienced by Christians today is that they fail to believe God loves them unconditionally. Most of us know John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” We know 1 John 4:8, “God is love.” But knowing and believing are sometimes disconnected.

One of the greatest prayers ever prayed for the church was written down by Paul in Ephesians 3:14-21.

¹⁴ For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, ¹⁶ that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,¹⁷ so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, ¹⁹ and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ²⁰ Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Paul prayed that this church would be rooted and grounded in love.

He prayed that we would would know the breadth, length, height and depth of God’s love.

He prayed that we would know the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge.

Does your belief in God’s love match Paul’s prayer here? Do you really believe God loves you? Too often we are rooted and grounded in our pursuit of happiness or health or wealth. Too common is it that we believe God loves us based on our obedience or our goodness or our giving or our church attendance. Too many days do we wander through life devoid of peace, strength and calmness because we are not living in the certainty that we are loved by God.

In his book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning asked,

Do you really accept the message that God is head over heels in love with you? I believe that this question is at the core of our ability to mature and grow spiritually. If in our hearts we really don’t believe that God loves us as we are, if we are still tainted by the lie that we can do something to make God love us more, we are rejecting the message of the cross.”[1]

[1]Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, 165.

Here are some reminders that I trust will encourage you today:

• God loves you unconditionally.
• God’s love is deep enough to reach you at the deepest point of your sinfulness (and not just you, but those you love and pray for regularly).
• God’s love is long enough to give you eternal life.
• God’s love is high enough to take you to heaven.
• God’s love is long enough to go all the way around the world and save you and many, many others all over the world.

Maybe, you believe that God loves you. Maybe you don’t doubt it. Or maybe you know someone who does. Consider sharing this with someone else? But more than anything, pray for them. Pray that someone else will know the fullness of the love of God.