Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
We find this verse at the end of the book of 1 Timothy. This letter is an encouragement to this young man of faith. We often will refer to 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 12, which Paul writes to say to Timothy: "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young."
That might sound familiar to some because we tell it to kids. We say to children, "There is substance and something for you to offer God's kingdom here on earth. Don't let anyone tell you because you're young, you can't contribute."
More Than Little Children
I want to kind of point to that because Paul wasn't reducing those words down to little children. He was writing as an encouragement to Timothy because Timothy was living during a time and a culture and society where there were all types of pressures pushing back against the message of hope that he was preaching—the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In other words, there were people who had lived for years and years before Timothy who thought they knew everything about what it meant to be right and good before God. They had their own ways of understanding how to be righteous in their living, how to find the way forward in their belief and understanding of what is true and what is good.
The Revolutionary Gospel Message
Timothy learned from Paul the Gospel message—the truth that salvation is found in the finished work of Jesus. This message, though familiar to so many of us now in our current day and age, was a new and revolutionary message that was pushing back against what culture and society believed.
When Timothy, this young man of faith, was living out of a conviction from his connection to Christ, there was pushback. There was continued temptation to shrink back against cultural pressure.
Hold Fast to What Is Eternal
One of the other things that's interesting is where we find our Verse of the Day—in chapter 6, where Paul just gets done talking about how, if we're not careful, money and all of our focus on resources and having things can get our eye off the ball, so to speak. We can become more focused on worrying about provision and having things.
Sometimes when that's the case, though it's important, it causes us to focus our lives on things that are not ultimately eternally meaningful.
When Paul says to Timothy to fight the good fight and to hold tightly to eternal life, we see that as a rich encouragement on multiple levels.
Two Levels of Meaning
Of course, the first level is the general reminder that comes to us as Christians. As we live on a day-to-day basis, we need to hold tightly to the message of eternal life—that salvation comes from Christ, that everything we experience in this world pales in comparison to Him.
Also, this message to hold to what is eternal is a reminder to not be consumed with what is temporal. It's not saying that it's not challenging to have financial challenges, bills that we need to pay, needs that we have.
What Paul is reminding not only Timothy, but us as a byproduct, is that we need to hold fast in this life to what is eternal. We need to look beyond what we see as limited in this world and know that there is more—a world that exists outside of what we see and touch and feel.
The eternal God, the living Lord, is the One that we place our faith, our hope, and our anchor in.
Hold Fast
Hold fast to what is eternal. Today, I don't know what you're navigating, what you're walking through. Hold fast. Hold tightly to what is eternal—not just limited by this world, but the world to come.
