Power and Love and an Ordered Mind

POWER LOVE AND AN ORDERED MIND

2Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of an ordered mind.

When Paul writes this letter to Timothy, he had been abandoned by many of his associates and is suffering in prison like a criminal for preaching the Gospel- and Timothy is suffering in the church in Ephesus because of the opposition and criticism toward his own ministry. Paul had commissioned Timothy to care for the church in Ephesus, which he himself had founded and established, and he knew well the strengths and weaknesses of that church and he knew the pressures of the opposition that Timothy was under. 
He encourages Timothy and identifies with him, saying ‘God has not given ‘US’ a spirit of fear’. And in saying ‘US’ he is talking not only about himself but to all of us who also embrace the truth of the Gospel of ‘Christ in us and us in him’ – the Gospel that Paul preached everywhere he went. (Colossians 1:2, Ephesians 3:6-17). 

That message of the simplicity of Christ was being opposed then, and is still being opposed today. That Gospel of Christ was the foundation of our society’s tradition and formed its moral and ethical and relational integrity. Over recent generations our western society gradually became indifferent to the Gospel message and in recent times it has become quite hostile. Paul’s counsel to Timothy was not to fear, but to be strong and to trust in the faithfulness of God towards him and in the power of God within him. God is saying the same to us today.
In the next verse (verse 8) Paul tells Timothy not to be ashamed of that Gospel, nor of his association with Paul because he was suffering in prison for the Gospel – the power of salvation for all who believe. In this same passage of Scripture he writes.
‘which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.’ (2Timothy 1:12)

We are living in times when things have come to a deadlock in many spheres of our global society - in politics, in finances, in education, in relational integrity, in emotional well-being and in the spiritual influence of the Church. There is a power struggle in the heavens and God is moving forward and overcoming darkness, and many of God’s people are moving forward with him in their own lives, but we have yet to see this being manifested in the earth. As God said to Moses and to Israel at the crossing of the Red Sea ‘Stand still and see the salvation of your God’. Israel’s faith then actively moved them forward – by faith they crossed on dry land (Hebrews 11:29) - It is the same with us in these days when we embrace the moving of the Spirit of God within us – we move forward from a place of stillness.

The church in Ephesus had been beset with power struggles because of false teachers that had infiltrated the church and confused the people, and Paul had written to the church in Ephesus warning them of this (Ephesians 4:13). And in this letter to Timothy he warns him of the same thing and tells him to speak against it. He says to him, ‘Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine but will want to hear according to their own desires, and 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 (fictional faith fantasies - 2Timothy 4:2).  

Paul had looked after the church in Ephesus for three years (Acts 20) during which time there were many signs and wonders done by him. There were also many false signs and wonders done by sorcerers and other false teachers but Paul’s teaching prevailed.  
Acts 19:16 ‘many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totalled fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. 

Finally, when he was about to leave the church, he called for the elders of the church. And when they had come to him, he encouraged them and he warned them, saying ‘For I know this, that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves. Therefore, watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone night and day with tears. So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace’ (Acts 20:29)
In the light of all this, Paul writes to Timothy in Ephesus.

THE SPIRIT OF POWER
Paul tells him that God has not given him a spirit of fear but had given him a Spirit of power and of love and of an ordered mind. The power of the world that was coming from some people in Ephesus was human power ‘over’ people, but the power of God through Timothy was Holy Spirit power ‘for’ people. Jesus said to his disciples ‘you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you’. Receiving the Holy Spirit is an attitude of faith in the working of God toward us an in us and through us.
Paul taught Timothy and he teaches us that we won’t know power unless we are extending God’s love - The Kingdom power that always extends itself out from God within us (2Corinthians 5:14 - For the love of Christ controls us). 
That power is the ability to change something from a lower state of physical or emotional energy to a higher state of Heavenly spiritual energy, where sin is transformed into holiness, anxiety into peace, sorrow to into joy, and fear into love.

THE SPIRIT OF LOVE
It is by experiencing the love of God to us that we can feel empowered. It changes us dramatically, surrendered to his will, as we receive God’s love with trust and thanks to him in whatever situation we find ourselves. We then observe how God dramatically changes the world around us as we come from a place of being united with God’s mind and heart of love and mercy, rather than acting from a place of judgement and vengeance. The Scripture describes this place of faith like this - children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world as you hold forth the Word of life. (Philippian 2:15). 
Here are some extracts from Lamentations 3:17-58 where Jeremiah the suffering prophet laments about giving Gods word to Israel and almost giving up as he thought it was going nowhere - but then he remembered Gods loyal love.

I've forgotten what the good life is like. I said to myself, "This is it. I'm finished. God is a lost cause." I'll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I've swallowed. I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—the feeling of hitting the bottom. 

But there's one other thing I remember, and remembering, I keep a grip on hope: God's loyal love couldn't have run out, his merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every morning. How great is your faithfulness! I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over). He's all I've got left.

God proves to be good to the one who passionately waits, to the one who diligently seeks. It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God. It's a good thing to stick it out through the hard times. When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face. The "worst" is never the worst.

Why? Because the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense. He takes no pleasure in making life hard, in throwing roadblocks in the way: Lord, you came close when I called out. You said, 'It's going to be all right.' you brought me back alive! God, you saw the wrongs heaped on me.’ You took my side, Master.

THE SPIRIT OF AN ORDERED MIND
Paul teaches us that the mind is the battleground of darkness where Satan causes people’s thinking to get entangled with anxious emotional reactions and wrong perceptions. Then they get stuck and are unable to move forward because a disordered mind with reactive perceptions of situations obstructs heaven’s power. But Paul had taught Timothy the truth of the Holy Spirit being at work in our lives to change us by reordering the spirit of our minds. 

2Corinthians 10:4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of human power but have divine power to destroy strongholds, casting down imaginations (wrong perceptions).

By acknowledging habits of emotional reactivity and surrendering the reactive perceptions of our imagination to God we destroy strongholds in the mind of wrong pathways of thought, and we rise up into the new life of an ordered mind - into a new pathway of freedom. We build that highway of the mind of Christ in our own minds and release the power of love from our hearts of faith – and that saves and heals the souls in the lives of the people in our world. Amen.