1 Timothy 6:13 – And Your Other Option Is…

13 I urge you in the sight of God who gives life to all things…

Why does a steward steal?  Alexandre Dumas shows in The Count of Monte Christo that he steals because he's not sure he'll always remain with his master and wants to make his future secure.

So it is that Paul takes some of the allure out of any temptation the materialism in the air at Ephesus has for Timothy. Already he has focused his young disciple on his work in the sight of God rather than for an audience of those who could bolster his pride and secure him financially. But Paul's very next phrase reminds Timothy, and us, of Who it is Who sees our efforts, of the heart and the power behind the gaze.

Paul takes us quickly back to Christ's work in creating and sustaining all things. There is no sense, Paul argues, to go off the path He has for us, to strive after some security on the side in case He doesn't come through, because it is He Who gives life to all things. Any competition to serving Him, any alternative master we would consider taking on as we take Christ's benefits for a while, is a poor trade in our quest for security.

Blessedly, the work of the Holy Spirit can take such at times mercenary motives and deepen them into a genuine love for Christ. We don't, it is true, have any option who can provide for us like He can. At His discretion, even that could we think we have turns to dust. We ourselves in our capacity to hold what we deem ours , we live, and move, and have our being so long as He dictates. He is sovereign to a degree that no one else is.

He is sovereign, AND He is loving. In the course of providing our daily bread, and the capacity to hold it and eat it, we realize His great love for us, a gift greater than bread. He draws us deeper into relationship, and that will outlast these mortal frames we need to support with the food and water we cannot obtain but for His provision. The love for Him, the relationship with Him, the grateful, joyous service of Him for which we were created, these are the ends, and the materials we quest after mistakenly are the means. As God gives life to all things, may we see Him behind His Creation today. As God gives life to all things, may we see Him behind even the efforts He empowers in us to create and subdue in His image.

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