Daily devotion – keep up your guard
I remember learning how to box as a young boy. The first rule you learn so you can survive in the ring is to keep your guard up. To protect your face from taking a shot that could send you to the canvas. In my first bout against a taller larger individual, this was always going to be the case due to my small stature during my early teen years, I thought I had my guard up, but it was not!
My first black eye to a straight left and I still remember seeing the stars literally. But what a lesson that first big blow was. My guard after that time was solid.
As a young Pastor, Timothy was warned by Paul his mentor, that he must ‘stay on the job’ as false teachers are always busy trying to capture Christians.
1 Timothy 1:3 3 When I left for Macedonia, I urged you to stay there in Ephesus and stop those whose teaching is contrary to the truth. 4 Don’t let them waste their time in endless discussion of myths and spiritual pedigrees. These things only lead to meaningless speculations, which don’t help people live a life of faith in God.
5 The purpose of my instruction is that all believers would be filled with love that comes from a pure heart, a clear conscience, and genuine faith. 6 But some people have missed this whole point. They have turned away from these things and spend their time in meaningless discussions. 7 They want to be known as teachers of the law of Moses, but they don’t know what they are talking about, even though they speak so confidently.
Timothy could not ever drop his guard as a pastor because there were teachers of false doctrines in Paul’s day just as there are today, and we must take them seriously.
We can never drop our guard! The best training for having a good guard is to always be in God’s Word, always checking what you hear with that which is true!
This week I encourage you to get into training more seriously because the enemy is always looking for an opening in your life, in your marriage and in your family. He is after a knockout blow. But with the armour of God, and our daily reading of God’s precious truth, no error will be able to make its way into your life to bring you to the canvas!
Finally, there is no rest from this bout, no time out, no end of the fight after 15 rounds. Our battle ceases only when we have been called home to Heaven.