Message from Scripture: 9/15/2021

 

Our message from Scripture today comes from 1 Tim. 6:12; “Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.”

 

As Paul finishes this letter to Timothy, he wants to emphasize something to Timothy that should be a guiding principle for his life, for all of his life. While there are those who put their trust in material possessions and riches, he here reminds Timothy of what is most important in life. It’s not that which is physical in nature, and therefore destined to ultimately perish, but what is spiritual, that which endures to eternity. Here he reminds him to take hold of eternal life, to which he was called by the gospel (2 Thess. 2:13-14). The term “take hold” indicates to pounce on something, to catch, to grab on to something to make it one’s own. What Timothy should grasp and cling tightly to is eternal life. Nothing in this life is worth forfeiting what is eternal, as today is fleeting at best, and salvation in Christ forever.

 

He emphasizes this again in 1 Tim. 6:19; “Storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” Paul wants Timothy to fully understand, and teach, the contrast with life propped up by so uncertain a support as riches, with that which endures forever. To live only for what today offers, and ignore the true riches, is folly. The only real life is the life we have in Christ, which offers us God’s best for today, and reaches beyond the here and now to eternity. No matter how good one may consider life today to be, it ends with death, or at the Lord’s return. Only in Christ can we be carried beyond the carnal to the spiritual, beyond the temporal to the eternal.

 

Let’s go out to serve our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, grabbing hold of what is eternal to make it our own, and find what Jesus calls the abundant life. It is worth the effort. God bless.

 

Robert