Insightful Musings on the Scriptures

by

Raymond P. Sparre
Northwest University class of '67

Good morning, dear ones.

It was a rather late night…and a late rising. Becki is in fabricating some breakfast for the whole gang…and I have 4 kids just outside (they’re inside now) waiting to do a walk/jog…after which we will return for breakfast and “church”—a Bible lesson session. We have to make some positive use of this time together…

Lots more on the agenda…need to run.

Blessings on your day. Love, Dad/Ray.

No—this is not a scriptural contradiction that shows Paul as being controlled by a negative destructive fear. He is simply testifying to a healthy kind of realism that every believer should have. It is a fear based on recognition of some important Biblical facts—the natural waywardness of the human heart and the subtlety of the enemy’s tactics at manipulating and influencing that human heart to wander outside the safety and security zone of Christ and His Word. In fact, it was this form of positive fear that influenced Paul to send Timothy to the Thessalonians to encourage and strengthen their faith (3:2). That effort seems to have been richly rewarded.

Notice the number of times that the word “faith” appears in chapter 3. I count 5 times. It is a word that defines the essential ingredient of successful living (…as well as successful dying. After all, I don’t want my dying to be a failure—do you?). God has clearly done much to make available and nurture this essential quality—and one that the tempter purposes to neutralize and destroy—creating an ongoing tension. So like it or not, you and I are actually walking battlefields in which this conflict continues between the two kingdoms of the universe. Question: In regards to this very small battlefield (your own human heart) of this very big war (universal conflict between the two kingdoms), which side do you want to win? It’s important to remember that a choice is required—and to not choose is itself a choice.

If this is true—that faith is of vital importance, and that the symbolic container for faith is the heart—then the words of Solomon in Proverbs 4:23 provide some very good practical advice: “Above all else (Can there be anything more important than above all else?), guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”