by Wesley Blackburn
As I sit and get ready to write this post, I just have to laugh. If there's been one passage of Scripture rolling around in my mind and heart recently, it is actually from 2 Timothy 2. The words here definitely carry a lot of weight. Obviously, they're the words of Scripture, so that makes them important in and of themselves. But there's something interesting about 2 Timothy; it is believed to be the final letter that Paul ever wrote (at least that we have and know of today). Paul was writing to Timothy, a young man (probably in his late teens or early to mid twenties) who had trained under Paul for a long time and had become one of Paul's most trusted friends and ministry colleagues. Paul knew the date for his trial before the Roman emperor Nero was coming, and that that could very well be it for him. So, before potentially dying, Paul wanted to make sure he left his best friend Timothy some words of wisdom.
And that's what we have here... Paul's advice to Timothy on how to be a servant of God. It all comes to a summary in verse 15: Paul asks Timothy to do everything in his power to present himself before God as one who did the job given to him and handled the message of God's truth with care.
But I'm also struck by something else in this chapter. Paul spends a lot of time asking Timothy to remember things that he already knew about Christ. That Christ is resurrected, that Christ died for us, that Christ gives us our salvation. Our identity is found in Christ. When we keep Him and His promises at the forefront of our minds, everything else has a way of falling into place. I think that's the biggest thing I take from Paul's words here; we need to keep Christ at the center. That's when we know we are good soldiers of Christ.
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