Faithful or Fallen: What It Means to Be a Servant of Christ

Many have the debate about whether or not you can lose your salvation. I don't want to have that debate, even though I have my opinion. But, I would like to take a look at First Timothy chapter four today, and see what the Bible says about those who "fall away" from the faith versus "good servants of Christ". In our hearts, we all want to be good at whatever we do. Not many people engage in activities with the intent on being bad, that would be a waste of our time! However, in order to be good at something, you must know what the requirements are and how to fulfill them. Let's see what Paul tells Timothy about being an apostate versus a good servant.

Pauls starts chapter four by stating, "Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared," (vs. 1-2). What does that mean? The definition of depart is to leave or deviate from. In this verse, Paul is referring to believers who professed to know Christ, but have departed from that faith in order to follow other teachings. He goes on to tell us they are now devoting themselves to the teaching of demons rather than the teachings of Christ. Whether or not these people Paul is referring to were ever Christians would answer the question about whether or not you can lose your salvation. Again, we are not going to focus our time on that today. You can study that and determine for yourself what you think the Bible is teaching regarding salvation. Either way, I believe we can learn from this scripture how to not fall away from the faith, which is our ultimate goal! These people fell prey to the deceit and corruption of false teachers as they falsified God's Word.

God is so gracious to us by giving us His Word to instruct us! Right after Paul shares these verses that can seem a little scary, God continues with how we can avoid this happening to us. In verses 6-8, Paul contrasts his previous statements with, "If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come." God makes it very clear how to not become an apostate, train yourself in His Word. This is a very simple command He gives, but simple isn't always easy.

Have you ever trained for something? Training takes discipline, hard work, and a lot of time. There is a reason that less than 1% of the population are elite athletes. Most of us don't have it in us to do what it takes to be an elite athlete. We might want to make the money they make, BUT we don't want to get up for 4 am workouts for years and years. We don't want to eat specialized diets to make our bodies perform at the top level. We don't want to experience cold plunges to help our muscles recover from the intense workouts we have endured. The payout is nice, but the training is less than desirable! Maybe you have trained for something else, like a new job? Most people hate training! You have learn so much in a very short amount of time. It is stressful and confusing, but you want to get the paycheck, so you put in the work.

Have you ever thought about training yourself in Godliness? It is just like any other type of training, but the payout has a much higher price tag. So, what would training yourself in Godliness look like? For starters, you must read the Word of God with the intent of developing a relationship with your Heavenly Father. This training requires you to read and study. It will take discipline and time. It is not something you do at night if you have time left in your day. Missing a day should happen rarely, and it should bother you when it happens. The next thing Paul tell us to do is to have NOTHING to do with irreverent behavior and silly myths. That means that we should avoid ALL things that are displeasing to God, including TV shows, music, movies, relationships, etc. We should also stay away from things exposing us to myths that do not align with the Word of God, such as Mother Earth, vibes, magic, and sayings like "Follow Your Heart". The world is full of ungodly people and false teachings that are trying to lead us astray.

Paul is sharing with Timothy in chapter four, how church goers are being led astray. He is instructing Timothy on teaching them how to prevent this. The same thing is going on in our world today. People are being led astray by false teaching. Why? Because they do not know the truth! Counterfeit detectives are trained by looking at real money, not counterfeit money. They study the markings and symbols on real money so long that when they see a counterfeit, they spot it immediately because they know what the real thing looks like! As believers, we should be studying God's Word so intently that when false teaching is presented to us, we recognize it immediately! However, most Christians do not read their Bibles, so the counterfeit truths sounds good because they have no idea what God's truth says.

Are you studying God's Word? Would you know false teaching if you heard it? If not, let Paul's words encourage you to start training. Don't wait, start now. The sacrifices you will make to train will be well worth the reward. If you are not sure how to start your training, contact us. We would love to pray with you and guide you as you begin training yourself in Godliness.

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