2 Timothy 1:3 – Grateful Submission
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, according to the promise of life which is in Christ Jesus,
2 To Timothy, a beloved son:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 I thank God…
Switchfoot catches completeness in their song title, "The Beautiful Letdown," and in the lyrics of that song the drill down further. It's a pledge, a resolution, better resolution of deep breath gratefully returned rather than grimly pursed lips. They sing of their Earthly journey, "I will carry across and a song where I don't belong. I don't belong here."
Paul knew both detached discipline and enthusiastic worship. He radiated both to those he influenced, and we see the fullness of their value as he begins to address Timothy again. Paul has yielded authority in his life. Jesus is Lord, he says at the end of verse two, just as he has already consigned his words and his purpose to Christ when he recognized in verse one that he was Christ's apostle.
I can submit to someone else's authority. They can rent my behavior, and I can fulfill the job description. But thankfulness for such a state usually takes some processing, some perspective, and at times some conviction and confrontation for my lack of gratitude. For Paul, who will say to live IS Christ, his submission and his gratitude are one and the same. The ink isn't dry on the one before he declares the other.
Are we grateful, publicly grateful, for an overshepherd Who has identified Himself with meeting the needs and so many of the wants we so clumsily and hurtfuly chased after? Have we understood, as Jon Hauser put it in his sermon on Psalm 16, that our attachments and enthusiasms tell the story of our hearts? Have we come to his striking realization, "Satisfaction keeps us from sin."
We will need to make this decision again. We will need to locate our gratitude on short notice before the week is well underway. For, even if our eternity is wholly His already, even if He has faithfully taken down strongholds in our hearts for decades, the light of His Spirit and His Word will always be about revealing one more errant delight while we breathe in this world.
He has every right to ask, peering into the corners of our hearts we so rarely examine, is this desire Mine to come to the root of, and to extract if necessary? We will decide then rather than in the enthusiastic surrender of one ecstatic moment, whether He is Lord of all we are. In that moment, should we seek the legal definition of compliance, the slithering adherence to any Bible verses explicitly dealing with the subject, genuine gratitude is far away.
But if we trust HIM, and not just His code, if we reflect on how good He has been to us beyond the minimal life sustenance to which He pledges Himself, if we realize how much better He is at reaching to the core of our identity and healing hurt and lack we didn't even recognize, surrender and song come together. They join in a beautiful letdown.
2 To Timothy, a beloved son:
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
3 I thank God…
Switchfoot catches completeness in their song title, "The Beautiful Letdown," and in the lyrics of that song the drill down further. It's a pledge, a resolution, better resolution of deep breath gratefully returned rather than grimly pursed lips. They sing of their Earthly journey, "I will carry across and a song where I don't belong. I don't belong here."
Paul knew both detached discipline and enthusiastic worship. He radiated both to those he influenced, and we see the fullness of their value as he begins to address Timothy again. Paul has yielded authority in his life. Jesus is Lord, he says at the end of verse two, just as he has already consigned his words and his purpose to Christ when he recognized in verse one that he was Christ's apostle.
I can submit to someone else's authority. They can rent my behavior, and I can fulfill the job description. But thankfulness for such a state usually takes some processing, some perspective, and at times some conviction and confrontation for my lack of gratitude. For Paul, who will say to live IS Christ, his submission and his gratitude are one and the same. The ink isn't dry on the one before he declares the other.
Are we grateful, publicly grateful, for an overshepherd Who has identified Himself with meeting the needs and so many of the wants we so clumsily and hurtfuly chased after? Have we understood, as Jon Hauser put it in his sermon on Psalm 16, that our attachments and enthusiasms tell the story of our hearts? Have we come to his striking realization, "Satisfaction keeps us from sin."
We will need to make this decision again. We will need to locate our gratitude on short notice before the week is well underway. For, even if our eternity is wholly His already, even if He has faithfully taken down strongholds in our hearts for decades, the light of His Spirit and His Word will always be about revealing one more errant delight while we breathe in this world.
He has every right to ask, peering into the corners of our hearts we so rarely examine, is this desire Mine to come to the root of, and to extract if necessary? We will decide then rather than in the enthusiastic surrender of one ecstatic moment, whether He is Lord of all we are. In that moment, should we seek the legal definition of compliance, the slithering adherence to any Bible verses explicitly dealing with the subject, genuine gratitude is far away.
But if we trust HIM, and not just His code, if we reflect on how good He has been to us beyond the minimal life sustenance to which He pledges Himself, if we realize how much better He is at reaching to the core of our identity and healing hurt and lack we didn't even recognize, surrender and song come together. They join in a beautiful letdown.
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