June 13, 2023: 2 Timothy 1:14 - Keep the Good Thing Committed by the Holy Spirit
“That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in us.” - 2 Timothy 1:14
The more I read the Bible, the more it draws me in, giving me a hunger for it like no other book I have ever read. There is a reason for that: it is no ordinary book. As Paul would later write to Timothy:
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
Before I became a believer in Jesus Christ, trusting in Him alone for my salvation - redemption of all my sins, paid by His precious blood - I started reading the Bible. I was seeking God but not yet filled by the Holy Spirit. However, as Jesus told His disciples, the Holy Spirit was convicting me of my sin, showing me I am a sinner in need of the Savior:
“And when He [the Holy Spirit] has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler [Satan] of this world is judged.” (Jesus Christ; John 16:8-11)
This conviction was so strong that I sought to know the truth, and I found it. After having read the entire Bible cover to cover, I absolutely knew it was the word of God, and not long after that, I put my faith and trust in Jesus for my salvation and I gave Him my heart. Once I did that, I continued to read the Bible and I started to understand things that previously did not make sense to me or which I did not comprehend the first time that I read it. Things started to connect, particularly with Bible prophecy, which is the foretelling of things to come before they actually happen. The Bible is the only book that accurately prophesies events to come hundreds even a thousand or more years before they happen. The first coming of Jesus Christ is one of those events, and He fulfilled hundreds of prophecies written about the coming Messiah in the Old Testament.
Every single person who has turned to Jesus Christ, believing in Him as their Savior, is instantly filled with the Holy Spirit. Once the conversion happens, as Jesus told His disciples, the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth (John 16:13). It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can understand God’s word.
When Jesus was speaking with Nicodemus, a Jewish man and a Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews who had come to Jesus by night to ask Jesus some questions. Nicodemus knew there was something about Jesus, something different:
“‘Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nicodemus said to Him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’” (John 3:1-6)
As humans beings, we are differ when ent from everything else created by God, because we are created in His image and we are born of water. When we are in our mother’s womb, we are enclosed in a bag of water. A mother’s bag of water breaks before her baby is born. As the Bible tells us, in order to see the kingdom of God, to be allowed entry into it, we must be born again by the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. We are baptized by the Holy Spirit. This does not mean that we must be water baptized to be saved by Jesus Christ; no, the only requirement is that we believe or trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation from sins. We can known this to be true by remembering the thief on the cross who was one of two men who were crucified at the same time that Jesus was crucified. He acknowledged he was a sinner and he acknowledged Jesus is the Christ, and said to Jesus, “‘Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.’” (Luke 23:42-43) There was no water baptism, only belief in Jesus in who He is and a baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Paul the apostle wrote about receiving the Holy Spirit in his letters to the church in Corinth, Greece:
“For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free - and have all been made to drink into one Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 12:13)
Paul wrote about believers having the Holy Spirit in the book of Romans:
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1)
“But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.” (Romans 8:9)
In the book of Ephesians, Paul also wrote about believers in Christ being sealed by the Holy Spirit:
“In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” (Ephesians 1:4)
We are sealed by His Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth, giving us understanding of the Scriptures that the unbelieving world does not understand, no matter their status in this world. They can have billions of dollars and be rich and powerful beyond compare but be spiritually bankrupt and without understanding of the things of God because they have rejected Jesus Christ. Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians 2:
“However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained [predetermined] before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written:
‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’
“But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man [unsaved] does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For ‘who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:6-16)
The Holy Spirit convicts unbelievers of their sins, showing them they need to be saved by the One who is righteous - Jesus Christ. Jesus alone is the way out of judgment, out of condemnation:
“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.” (Jesus Christ; John 3:17-19)
Each of us has a choice to make: do we choose salvation or condemnation, do we choose light or darkness, do we choose good or evil, do we choose Jesus or Satan? Satan is the god - the false god - of this world. This is acknowledged in the book of Luke when Satan tempted Jesus Christ when Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days and fasted during those days of temptation. Satan said to Jesus in one of those temptations:
“Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, ‘All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.’ And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve,”’” (Luke 4:5-8)
Notice that Jesus did not dispute Satan’s claim that all the kingdoms of the world had been delivered to him. I believe that Satan has tempted many people as well, promising them many material things in exchange for their worship of him, for their souls, and disregarding Jesus’ words that they should only worship and serve God. The time is coming when Satan and all who follow him will be judged when Jesus returns to earth a second time. At Jesus second coming, however, He will not come as a lamb offering salvation from sins but as a lion, pouring out His righteous wrath on a world that chose condemnation over salvation, darkness over light, evil over good, and Satan over Him.
God’s word is a message of salvation through believing and trusting in Jesus Christ and as a warning of the spiritual war that is at work and has been since the garden of Eden for the souls of mankind. Either Jesus or Satan will own your soul; there is no in between. For those of us whose souls are owned by Jesus, we will suffer persecution and I believe this will increase even more than it already has, including the banning of the Bible in the USA, as it already is in other countries. On June 2, 2023, a school district in Utah that oversees the “education” of 72,000 students banned the Bible because one parent complained “its verses were too vulgar or violent for younger children” and the parent was “frustrated by efforts to ban materials from schools.” This, I believe, is the start of severe persecution coming to our country, as the USA continues to abandon its faith in God to believe the lies of Satan. The Bible even foretells of this. The ones doing the persecuting and deceivingare unknowingly being deceived themselves by Satan, whose goals are to steal, kill, and destroy. (See: https://apnews.com/article/book-ban-school-library-bible-fc025c8ccf30e955aaf0b0ee1899608a)
“Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing them from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” (2 Timothy 3:12-15)
Those us who are in Christ must heed the words of Paul and keep the good thing, the doctrine of the gospel, the good news of salvation though faith in Jesus Christ and we must keep it not by our own strength but through the power of the Holy Spirit who dwells in us. Let us remember that our trust, our hope, our eternity is not in this world but in Jesus Christ, and He is King of kings and Lord of lords, and one day, I believe soon, our salvation will be complete, when we are with Him, never looking back on the things of this world but only looking ahead, to a glorious eternal life with Him and all our brothers and sisters, where sin and sorrow abound no more.
When Jesus was brought to the court during one of His trials before He was crucified, He was asked a question by Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor to whom the Jews had brought Jesus to put Him to death:
“‘Are You a king, then?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” (Jesus Christ; John 18:37)
In the book of John, we have an account when Jesus was talking to the Jews in the Jewish temple. Jesus said to them:
“But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and My Father are one.” (Jesus Christ; John 10:26-30)
I leave you with these five questions:
Have you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, believing in Him for salvation from your sins?
If not, are you prepared to spend your eternity in hell, separated from Him forever, in a place of never-ending torment?
What is holding you back from turning to Him?
Is not turning to Him going to be worth it in the end?
Will you be like the thief on the cross that is with Jesus now in Paradise, or will you be like the other thief who mocked Jesus and is now in hell, in a place of torment forever?