SCRIPTURE: 2 Timothy 2:14-4:22
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
We were made to be good like God, to do good, to add to the ‘very goodness’ of creation.
But sinful desires, false ideas, and terrible times have messed up God’s ‘very good’ world.
Jesus came to restore God’s good creation, and His good image-bearers.
Every person who joins Jesus by faith joins His army of ‘good workers’.
The sacred writings help us to see the difference between good and evil, and where they lead.
“These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us…” (1 Corinthians 10:11)
The bible is not a text book, to is a handbook on living the good life (according to God).
It does not give us information so much as inspiration and motivation.
As we read, the Spirit speaks to our hearts, cutting into our soul like a surgeon’s scalpel.
Exposing sinful desires and behaviours, revealing and affirming goodness and integrity.
The key to this process is the ‘God-breathed’, not just in how it was written, but how it works.
The same Spirit that breathed into it’s authors breathes into its readers.
It is not time with the book that matters (it is the medium), but time with the Spirit of God.
Spend time with God, pray through what you read, open your mind to correction and direction.
And you will be equipped to add to the ‘very goodness’ of God’s world.
What do you sense the Lord saying to you?
PRAYER
Lord, today again I have the opportunity to overcome evil with good. May the words I read with You today prune and prepare me to produce good fruit.