The scripture they use to go with this devotional is from 2 Timothy 2:15, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth"
-"If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can." WHOA! That first line alone could be enough to last me a while. Sure is something to work on. So many times I believe in what I believe in because it's what I've been taught, or it's what my parent's believe, or it's what my friends believe, or it feels right. But truly why do I believe what I believe. Why does it makes sense to ME and NOT to everyone else. Granted this like says is you can't express yourself well but I ask myself, Why do you believe what you believe and what's your proof to back you up when someone ask? Well let's move on.
"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 the 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."
This makes me realize how important it is to know the truth, forward and backwards, and not in some fancy words all the time but also some common words for all to hear and understand and in your own words. So many times you hear someone telling a truth but it sounds like it came from a script. There's no power behind it or connection. When someone tells the same story, keeping the truth in mind, using their words, it can bring the truth to life and become so much more powerful. This reminds me that as I share with others about God's truth to not use the words I was taught to tell the truth but to tell it in my own words then when people ask questions I may be able to answer them rather than question what I said myself. So there's on more part
"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 whelps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly."
This gets me excited! This shows my how important it is to study God's truth and how to have a relationship with Christ. A human to human relationship studies each other and ask each other questions and even questions their part in the relationship. Shouldn't we do this with Christ? Shouldn't we study Him and get to know him and really understand the truth so then we can be able to tell others the truth?
No not all my opinions are right but it sure got me asking myself a lot of questions and really think about why I believe what I believe, what my relationship God looks like and how I'm going to share the truth in a way that I understand it and others can also understand it!
