Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training....
casting down imaginations - Bing images
“Instead [of getting involved in foolish, ignorant arguments, that only start fights], train yourselves to be godly. Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.” (1 Timothy 4:8)
So how do we train for godliness?
The senior pastor at my church recently spoke about this in a sermon. He said that if you want to win, you have to train. To train, he noted, one entered a strict regiment, stretched, and warmed up; they just didn’t show up.
He went on to note that the reason we can’t stop something that is sin may be that we are trying and not training. Training involves having a plan and following through whether we feel like it or not. It involves intentionality.
Things that cause you to flourish spiritually like praying, reading the word, giving to others generously, being kind, thankfulness, sabbath rest, worship, fasting, delighting in the Lord, and learning are all great ways to train.
Part of training needs to involve our thinking. In Jeremiah 4:14, the Lord speaks to His people to cleans their heart that they may be saved. He asks, “How long will you harbor your evil thoughts?”
Our thought patterns can often be something that goes unnoticed or unchallenged. But by prayerfully reading the Word of God, it is living and active to divide the truth from lies and challenge the way we are thinking. It is one area of our greatest battles.
2 Corinthians 10:5 speaks of “casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”
These would be lies about our situation, ourselves, or people around us that would lead to bondage, shame, fear and feeling discouraged or hopeless. These lies entangle us and trip us up. They hold us down and try to pull us back from all God has for us. Changing this thinking will lead us to greater joy in our lives.
More than ever, we need intentionality in the way we live and the way that we think. One of the areas that I have particularly struggled with in the past is as it relates to mistakes. When I know that I am in the wrong, I beat myself up and assume the worst will happen. Yet, God is always faithful to come through.
Yesterday on my weekly call with my staff, we all shared a mistake or fear that came up in our life where God was faithful and worked the situation for good. Everyone could easily find a story to share. There was not one person in our group that couldn’t come up with a time that God undeservedly intervened and blessed them with goodness.
It is good to remember that God will not only make a way for us in difficulty, challenges and failures but bring us out victorious on the other end. It felt like such a time of rich feasting on His faithfulness.
Steve Backlund, in his book, Victorious Mindsets, notes that those who succeed most also usually fail most.[1] Like Michael Jorden who said that the secret to his success was failure, the more that we play in the game, practice, humbly learn, and correct ourselves, the greater we grow and achieve.
At the same time as we can anticipate His goodness, we have to be careful that we don’t anticipate Him to make our situations comfortable. The people struggled with this in Jeremiah. The spiritual leaders all proclaimed peace and protection from the Lord to stay in the Land. They couldn’t’ hear that the Lord wanted them to repent.
How easy it is to associate our conditions with God’s faithfulness to us. The Lord says about the people during the time of Jeremiah that they were offering superficial treatments and ruled by greed. They failed to repent and turn from the ways of the world but thought God’s blessing was for them in it.
Not too long ago, the Lord spoke to me about “a procession of confession.” What I felt He was speaking was that He was bringing our church body along a path of confession for sin and worldliness. In this, there is an abundance of grace and blessing. But the blessing comes from freedom from worldliness instead of being made comfortable and given convenances.
Earlier in the prophecy from Jeremiah, the Lord, through Jeremiah, tells the people to plow up their hard hearts and not to waste their good seed among thorns. Instead, they were to surrender their pride and power and change their hearts before the Lord.
Surrender and humble repentance rather than striving and ambition takes us to deeper places. Faith is unwarranted if it is not in the will of God. We cannot attach faith to something and expect God to honor it if we fail to listen, surrender, and follow. We are first to be hearer of the Word, and then doers. This (humble repentance and surrender) is the old, godly, way that we are called to walk. The thistles and thorns are the things of the world that choke out the Word of God.
Jesus says in Matthew 13:22, “The seed sown among the thorns is the one who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.”
Even the strongest Christians can lose their way among difficulty and opt for worldly comfort over sacrificing for the Kingdom. Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:10 that Demas deserted him because he loves the things of this life and went to a place where he could be comfortable and not persecuted. In verse 16 he goes on to say that everyone deserted and abandoned him when he was brought before the judge.
We can look at the abundance and success of someone else and think to ourselves that we want to have faith for this as well and reach for it, but isn’t this rooted in greed and envy? We are looking to the world to satisfy us. We want popularity, status, wealth, and success. Rather, the way of the Kingdom has always been sacrificing and surrendering for the benefit of others.
In 2 Timothy 2:22-25, Paul notes that instead of allowing yourself to be drawn into temptations, to stay far away from them and pursue living intentionally, being faithful, having good fellowship with believers, loving others with pure hearts. Rather than quarrel [that is rooted in want, power, and position], we are to be kind to everyone, be able to teach, and be patient with difficult people while gently instructing those who oppose the truth.
Lord, when I look at the life of Paul, I am definitely not anywhere near arriving. Thank you for being so patient with me. Teach us Your ways and lead us in Your truth, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom. Let our lives reflect Your goodness and grace at every turn.
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