Get away!

This devotion this morning will take some thinking on your part. We looked at these verses not long ago but I want you to think about something this morning in these verses. Here they are:


2 Timothy 3:1-5

1 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: 2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!

I hope you carefully read these verses. As I read these verses it describes our time right now. I mean every description can be seen everyday we make it through. Since we talked about these not long ago I will not go over them again as most are self explanatory anyway. What I want ot focus on this morning is verse 5.

Back during the Presidential election, several news agencies stated that 84% of our country claim to be Christians. When I seen that I was shocked! If that was true our nation would not be in the shape it is in right now. Verse 5 says having a form of godliness but denying its power. I believe this verse explains the statistic mentioned earlier (84%). You see claiming to be a Christian and being a Christian is two different things. Georeg Barna recently reported that only 30% of our nation are Bible Believing Christians. To me that is a very Key statistic because if you don't believe the Bible from cover to cover than you are not a Christian because you are creating your own standards to live by not God's.

Now look back at the descriptions of the world today. Sounds like our neighbors, friends, many of our church memebers, and folks in the community. Now let say this...if someone is new in the faith it may take time to get rid of some these traits I understand that but if you have been a Christian for some time and many of these traits describe you, you had better look at your relationship with Christ for the Bible is clear we should develop the characteristics of Christ the opposite of these.

Look at the last verse again...focus on from such people turn away. Who are your friends? Do you have friends who live the life of the world? God says stay away from them. What does that mean? It means you must still try to bring them to Jesus but you should not be spending great amounts of time with them. Why? The reason is their life style will influence you in the wrong direction. Decisions to cut ties with folks is very hard but as the Bible teaches here it is needed.

So much to think about in this lesson today!

Tom