Message: In 2 Timothy 6 Paul was encouraging Timothy to “keep ablaze” (or stay on fire with) the gift that God had given to him by the laying on of hands. The very next verse is “for God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind.” I have seen this also translated that God has not given us a spirit of “timidity”. Either way, I always hear this scripture used in the context of overcoming fearful situations and I don’t see anything wrong with that application but the footnotes in my bible describe the word that was translated into “fearfulness” was actually a word similar to “cowardly” but much stronger. The contrast in the scripture was the difference between being bold and being a coward. In this context the contrast would be about using his gift to spread the gospel. What I really got out of this chapter is that Paul was encouraging Timothy to keep his passion and use his gifts to spread the gospel. For me personally this is a little nudge out of the comfort zone. We all have gifts, we all have influence and we all have relationships. We need to maximize our influence not to “sell” Jesus, but to make a lasting impact on someone who needs to see Jesus at work in our lives so that they know he as at work in theirs too. We all have friends that have been sold on a product or have joined a multi-level marketing group. They suddenly show a personal interest in people, send messages and want to tell you about their life changing product or company. I’m not suggesting that we turn Jesus into a multi-level marketing scheme. Most people would be put off by that simply because they can usually smell the insincerity, but what if we had that much thought and commitment toward sharing the very gospel that has turned our own lives upside down? What if we were more in tune to our conversations with people and looked for opportunities instead of minding our own business? What if we took the risk to act with boldness when our family, coworkers and friends are hurting and fearful? This is what they need and we have the answer! This is where we need to get over ourselves and not be a coward because God has given us a spirit of power, love and a sound (stable) mind. When people recognize the love in us and see us walking out our lives with emotional and spiritual stability, they will respond to the power of God working through us.
