Charged
2 Timothy 4
I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
II Timothy 4:1-5 NKJV
This hits home.
Sometimes, I check the temperature on whether gospel words will fly. How’s the room? Are they going to land? Hit the wall? Or burn?
Me: “But wait God, what if I’m in a room with people who severely disagree with the Word of God? Or disagree with right and wrong? Or just plane old don't like me?
God: “Yep, do it anyway.”
Me: “What if they don’t like me?”
God: “They didn’t like me. Why would they like you? Besides your job isn’t to get people to like you, it’s to share the truth.”
So much of what I do is to gain likes, gain respect, gain attention, gain love.
That’s not the call. That’s not the charge.
The mandate is to rise to the occasion and preach Jesus Christ. He is the Light and Savior of the world.
There are a lot of good things I can do to fill my time, but are they the right things, the best things, or the things God has called me to? Charged me to do? to say?
Honestly, I have fallen short on too many occasions when I felt nudged to say something allowed fear to quench the desire. But my charge is to do it anyway. Let this announcement be heard in my soul. Let it linger there, and be a reminder to me:
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold In settings of silver.
Proverbs 25:11
He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; He who keeps understanding will find good.
Proverbs 19:8
Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, For he will despise the wisdom of your words.
Proverbs 23:9
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
Proverbs 1:7
It is not up to me to whether one is a fool or wise. It is only my responsibility to say what the LORD directs me to say. In a world full of opinions and evil desires to quench what is good, what is true, what is life giving- I must now more than ever choose to let my love of God overflow onto His children whom are lost.
PRAYER: Jesus, give us courage to say and do what is right and good. Give us courage to share the Good News with those around us. We cast off any restraint this world has laid upon us, we bind the fear of man on our lives and we loose the joy of the Lord. We loose identity, mandate, and calling on your daughters. Help us fulfill the mandate we were born for. In Jesus' name we pray, Yes! and Amen!
Amen❣️