ODJ: how to be strong


August 14, 2014 

READ: 2 Timothy 2:1-13 

Timothy, my dear son, be strong through the grace that God gives you in Christ Jesus (v.1).


Unfinished business. Too much to do. 


These are words from a poem by George R. Foster. And perhaps that’s how you feel sometimes as you serve God in your church, workplace, school or home. 


Timothy was feeling timid and weak in the Lord’s service when the apostle Paul wrote to encourage him: “Timothy, my dear son, be strong through the grace that God gives you in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 2:1). 


“In Christ” is a phrase that Paul used often in his epistles. It refers to the amazing truth that when you trust Jesus as your Saviour, God views you as totally identified with Him. And all of the riches of Christ are ours because we are “united with Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). 


Hudson Taylor, founder of the China Inland Mission, understood what it means to be found in Christ. He wrote: “It makes no matter where He places me or how; that is rather for Him to consider than me. For the easiest positions He must give me grace, and in the most difficult, His grace is sufficient. So, if God places me in great perplexity, must He not give me much guidance; in positions of great difficulty, much grace; in circumstances of great pressure and trial, much strength? As to work, mine was never so plentiful, so responsible or so difficult, but the weight and the strain are all gone. His resources are mine, for He is mine.”


His grace is sufficient for you! (2 Corinthians 12:9). —Poh Fang Chia


365-day plan› Luke 15:1-10