1 Timothy 6:19 – Hold on with Me!

17 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. 18 Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, 19 storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

Let Christ be as unique with others, insists Francis Chan in Crazy Love, as He has been with you.

Then, there's the other side. There is the side of Him revealing Himself uniquely through the walks of those humans behind whom we follow. There is the spirit in which Paul can insist on the fullness of Christian freedom in Galatians 4, exhorting, follow me as I follow Christ. In that sense, he can similarly leave footsteps for Timothy to follow.

More amazing still, this sense of the power of one individual's trek can carry forward to a third spiritual generation. Even before Timothy engages in the particular fight with the leadership in Ephesus which is ahead of him, Paul is inspiring him with a sense of legacy-leaving. He has just told Timothy to lay hold of eternal life. Now, closing out 1 Timothy 6:19, he uses the same figure for the impact Timothy can have on the formerly recalcitrant flock he is to redirect. The goal, says the Holy Spirit through Paul, is that even these may lay hold of eternal life.

We want both as healthy Christians. We want God to celebrate His full freedom to do something entirely different through those around us than He has done with us. Yet, there's something especially gratifying about the glimmer of resemblance, the similar metaphor or method He uses to engage someone we care about just as He has done with us. It shows, somehow, that He is not frustrated, that He is not scrambling, that the rhythms of His grace go on unimpeded from person to person in age to age.

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