Growing Your Life With God | Pastor Terry A. Smith – GPS: The Adventure of the Pathway (Week 2)

Pastor Terry A. Smith Devotional Plan for: Week of July 19 - July 23 Monday - Read I Timothy 2:1-4 I Timothy 2:1-4 NIV: "I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." As we continue our series on The Pathway at TLCC, which is a curated growth plan to help us live the life God dreams for us, we look at how Paul discipled his mentee, Timothy, so he could grow into who God intended him to be. Fittingly, Paul begins this week's writing with an emphasis on prayer, which corresponds with our focus on "Grow in your life with God" from this past Sunday. The "Spiritual Disciplines", or routines that posture us to connect with God, are essential to understanding who God is and growing closer to him. In Paul's writing to Timothy, we get a glimpse into his recommendation for prayer, arguably the most key discipline. Here, he emphasizes continually praying for those who are in leadership over us, particularly in socio-political positions of leadership, as how they treat us significantly impacts our lives. Though Paul is living quite an extraordinary life with tons of twists and turns, many of which involve risking his life, we can see he is praying for peace and quiet. We must realize that first-century rulers were excruciatingly immoral leaders, for the most part. First-century ethics were vastly different from ours. If you think we have bad leadership in our current American context, you can't begin to imagine the incomprehensible practices of first-century leaders. In fact, Tom Holland, an agnostic historian, was reading about first-century Rome and realized how absolutely barbarian it was compared to our contemporary world. And he realized that Christianity virtually single-handedly caused that ethical shift. All of this goes to show that Paul was praying for leaders that were unimaginably worse that the current leaders we have. However, he asked for us to have thanksgiving for them and to intercede on their behalf. The structures and authorities that we have around us, though broken, do play an important part in how God made the world. As we pray for them, we pray for things to get better. And, it creates an atmosphere where we can practice our faith in safety. As our world becomes more hostile to Christianity, we should say similar prayers for our leaders so we can live in peace and quiet. Paul doesn't only pray for them out of a desire for peace for himself and other Christians, but for the leaders to know the truth themselves. God desire for everyone to be saved. Sometimes, we may look at people and assume they're past saving, or maybe they don't deserve to be saved. Paul continues to pray for all people because God wishes to draw all people to himself. Our prayer times should not just be focused on our own lives, but also on the world around us. This week, consider praying for your "enemy" by interceding for them. Reflection Question(s): Who is one person you normally wouldn't pray for but would like to pray for this week? - Christian Smith – Director of Pastoral Ministries Tuesday - Read I Timothy 2:5-7 I Timothy 2:5-7 NIV: "For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles." Today we will continue to look at how Paul mentored, led, instructed, and encouraged Timothy. In these verses, Paul is making an argument for the command set down in verses 1-3, (discussed in yesterday's devotional) that we ought to pray for all of our authorities.