Good morning. For the report of your obedience has reached
to all; therefore I am rejoicing over you, but I want you to be wise in what is
good and innocent in what is evil. There are a lot of people in the world today
claiming to be wise; but their wisdom is not in what is good, but in what is
evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Satan is all
about discord and unrest. God is all about peace. It is through His peace that
we will overcome. Notice that it was under their feet – they were the ones that
were going to be walking all over Satan. Now to Him who is able to establish
you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the
revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but
now is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, according to the
commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading
to obedience of faith. God only gave hints throughout the Scriptures of the old
testament about the coming salvation of His Messiah. Scriptures were only
available to a few people, and not many of them were able to see what God was
saying about the future. If everybody had known about God‘s plan, they might’ve
just said “there is no sense in messing with the law of Moses for true
salvation is coming any minute”. The church needs to be careful about having
the same attitude today. If Christians say “there is no sense in straightening
out our lives and bringing the gospel to the world, because Jesus is going to
return any second now to rapture the church”, they will miss out on what God
has planned for them and will not be concerned about taking the gospel to the
world. Father thank You that You have great plans for our lives. Help us to
find out what they are, and to do all we can through Your help to fulfill them.
Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me
Good morning. Paul then gives a list of a lot of things that he has gone through as an apostle. I do not write these things to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. There could be many people that you listen to either in church or through the Internet or other means; but there was only one person (as a general rule it was a person) that lead you to Christ. Therefore I exhort you, be imitators of me. He was saying that just like a child imitates his or her father, they were to imitate him. He says that again seven chapters later. Since it is easy to forget some things about people we have not seen in a while, Paul says that he sent Timothy to them to remind them of his ways which are in Christ, just as he taught everywhere in every church. Some have become arrogant, as though I were not coming to you. I shall find ou...
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