2 Tim 2:11-13

"This is a faithful saying: For if we died with Him, We shall also live with Him. If we endure, We shall also reign with Him. If we deny Him, He also will deny us. If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself." 2 Tim 2:11-13

I like trustworthy statements, don't you? There is something about them that's . . well . . . uh . . .trustworthy. After all, if you can't trust a trustworthy statement, what can you trust? This is a good one. In fact it has several good parts. The first: "if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him." Most of the time that "dying" thing is a spiritual dying. We have to die to ourselves - put ourselves out of the ruler's seat and put God there. Sometimes that is a hard death to die. We never like to be "last". We have been taught to put "number one" first and foremost. The fact still remains, we must die to ourselves if we are to live in Jesus and as Paul tells Timothy, "with Him". Now that holds eternal promise for living with Him indicates eternal life. Sometimes the dying is literal. We call that martyrdom - being put to death because of our faith in Jesus Christ. If I have to, I'll take that kind of dying also - and I'll do it with all the grace God gives me.

The second part of this "trustworthy statement" is this: "If we endure, we shall also reign with Him." Endure what? Life? That's tough sometimes. Life can be real hard - especially when the enemy of our souls is prowling around seeking to destroy us. Remember poor Job? He was minding his own business when life turned rough. It can happen to us to. So we must endure life. What else? War?

We are in a spiritual war - one not fought with guns and artillery. It is one fought in a spiritual realm with demons and evil principalities and angels and archangels. Satan commands one army. God commands the other. We are the prize - the disputed territory - the object of the battle. From what I've seen of pictures and film of World War II, it was the disputed territory that suffered the most - until the final battles when the enemy was defeated on his own land. Being in the middle of a fighting war is something to be endured.

Part three is: "If we deny Him, He also will deny us." Here is something you don't want to fool around with. Denying Jesus is like stepping on your own land mine. One step in the wrong direction and "poof" the game is over - you lose! Losing this way means eternal separation from God - eternal dying - HELL! Don't mess around with this denial stuff! Incidentally, doing things that we know is against God's will is also a form of denying Him.

The final part is reassuring. "If we are faithless, He remains faithful; for He cannot deny Himself." Even if we deny Him; even if we have no faith in Him; even if there is no trust in Him on our part, He is faithful. He cannot be anything else. If He were anything but faithful, He would not be God and not being God He would be a liar and being a liar, we would be wasting our time trusting in Him. No, He cannot be anything but faithful. His faithfulness does not have anything to do with what we think of Him or believe about Him. It's not that He is disconnected from US. It is that we can be disconnected from HIM. He still remains the same yesterday, today, and forever. I think I will do my best to remain faithful, always trusting in Him to guide me. Won't you join me? Hallelujah, Amen and Amen.