The goal is to live godly life
If you point these things out to the brothers and sisters, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished by the words of the faith and the good teaching that you have followed. But have nothing to do with pointless and silly myths. Rather, train yourself in godliness. For the training of the body has limited benefit, but godliness is beneficial in every way, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come. This saying is trustworthy and deserves full acceptance. 1 Timothy 4:6-9
From the text, Paul was giving Timothy sound advice as to how to pursue godly living. As a child of God, this should be the goal in life. Paul told Timothy to reject “pointless and silly myths.” Such teachings come from false teachers who reject the truth of God’s word. The admonition was to get daily nourishment from the “words of the faith and the good teaching that you have followed.” Timothy has to be a student of the Word. This admonition has to be heralded in our time for people nowadays are no longer growing deeper in God’s Word. Living godly life will not happen automatically in the life of a believer. There will be countless matters that will put pressure to our life and will distract us and lead us to pursue other things. When this happens, our walk with God gets hindered. The question is how we do this in our busy fast-paced and complicated life? How can we consistently walk with God in the midst of relentless pressures that we deal with regularly? Paul told Timothy that the only way we could be godly and be close to God consistently is when we “train for godliness.” The key lies in returning to spiritual disciplines. We have to be decisive for the enemy will constantly put things in front of us that will trip us in our efforts to follow God. We really have to be serious about our walk with God. We could be deeply involved in religious activities and still not grow in godliness. No matter how much religious activities we get involved, we could still grow cold in our spiritual life and stagnate in our growth. It is always coming to our “first love” that will help us get back to practicing spiritual disciplines. When the Lord Jesus Christ rebuked those that substituted religious activities with regularly fellowshipping with God in prayer and by reading His word, He said to them, “I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first” (Revelation 2:4). It is only by cultivating intimacy with God that we will desire to obey His will for our life and pursue godliness. Just like Paul, the discipline we develop as we seek out to live our lives pleasing God is the result of God’s grace working within. “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).
Blessings,
Noel De Guzman
www.my-wbc.com
