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"Approved to God" 12/15/06 |
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| Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth —2 Timothy 2:15 | ||
| If you
cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until
you can. If you don’t, other people may miss out on the blessings that come
from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself
clearly and understandably, and God will use that same explanation when you
share it with someone else. But you must be willing to go through God’s
winepress where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle, experiment, and
rehearse your words to express God’s truth clearly. Then the time will come
when that very expression will become God’s wine of strength to someone
else. But if you are not diligent and say, "I’m not going to study and
struggle to express this truth in my own words; I’ll just borrow my words
from someone else," then the words will be of no value to you or to others.
Try to state to yourself what you believe to be the absolute truth of God,
and you will be allowing God the opportunity to pass it on through you to
someone else. Always make it a practice to stir your own mind thoroughly to think through what you have easily believed. Your position is not really yours until you make it yours through suffering and study. The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is not the one who teaches you something you didn’t know before, but the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly. |