Today’s Bible Reading:
2 Kings 13-14; 2 Chronicles 25; 2 Timothy 3
Journal Entry on a passage from today’s reading:
Topic: Repentance
SCRIPTURE: 2 Timothy 3:1-7
1 But mark
this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money,
boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving,
slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash,
conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have
nothing to do with them.
6 They are the
kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women, who
are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7 always learning but never
able to acknowledge the truth.
(2 Tim 3:1-8 NIV)
OBSERVATION:
Verses 1-5 reads a lot like
today’s society, and verses 5-6 are an indictment against a feckless,
irrelevant and impotent Church. But in my reading of this passage today, it is
verse 7 that has particularly drawn my attention. Paul alludes to people who
are “always learning,” but it doesn’t
seem to make any difference; they don’t take hold of the truth they learn;
nothing changes. Essentially that is what repentance means—being changed. Paul
laments the foreseeing of these, “terrible times in the last days.”
APPLICATION:
I see so much of this today in the
world and in the Church. I see people readily accepting and relying upon God’s grace to save them,
but making no effort whatsoever to change their lives. I see “Christian” kids
dishonoring their parents by disregarding what they have been taught. Sex
outside of marriage has become the norm. I see people in the Church doing what
they please with seemingly no conviction or remorse to change—people coming to
church, hearing and learning, but not changing, and somehow thinking that’s
okay. This is a wake up call to Christ’s Body! We need Holy Spirit empowered
preaching and teaching that brings repentance and change in people’s lives!
PRAYER:
Lord, help me to teach and preach
Your undiluted Gospel with power and results.
In Jesus’ name. Amen. -AP
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