When It's Time to Go

⁶ For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. ⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. ⁸ Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. 2 Timothy 4: 6-8 ESV

We think we’re here forever. Deep down we know that is not true. However, I believe in each person there is a sense of permanence. After all the only reality we know and are aware of has always included us.

Make no mistake about it, there was a time when you were not, there will never be a time when you will not be.

This life continues of that I am quite certain. How can you be? My initial encounter with Jesus as a teenager was profound, I have personally witnessed subsequent direction, and assurance of His reality. I have had prayers answered, seen doors open, and thankfully have seen some close. I have known love, as pure and real and rich as humanly possible, love points to a greater love!

It’s no small thing to have your path directed, to see things come together in a unique way. I know naysayers will say, it’s merely coincidental, human being long to see reason for things happening to them, we want to see connections, patters if you will.

What some people call coincidence, I call the will of God!

We stand you and I on the threshold of a New Year, 12 months untested, untried, unknown to us….but fully known to the Lord!

This may be my last year on this earth, it may be your last year! That is not a certainty, but the Lords desire to guide us is. In the book of Second Timothy, Paul's earthly life is coming to a close, He longs to instruct Timothy, and us…as “He pours His life out”

He Reflects on Battles Won ⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  Paul looks back on his life….the years have sped by like they do. A studious youth, led to a rabid adulthood, spent in persecuting believers, disrupting church services, sending offenders to jail.  Saul as he was then known was rapidly climbing the ladder of success, only to experience “Success Interrupted”. 

On a road that led to the city of Damascus, he meets the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, that encounter shook him to his knees, as it would and has any of us!  His conversion, is life altering, directives soon follow, and of all things God strikes him blind. It’ is no small thing to encounter God, and His purity! He gropes His way to a street called straight where a Christ follower named Ananias is told to expect this man who had hurt God’s people so many times!

He is healed, and the journey leads to Arabia and preparation, three mission trips will follow, countless churches started, in the 30 years of his missionary life he has traveled upwards of 10,000 miles by walking and by sea!

In a prison, (think dungeon) in Rome a city of a million people he writes… ⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.  I have fought the good fight” is also significant for believers today because it serves as a stark reminder that the Christian life is a struggle against evil—within ourselves and in the world 

The Greek translated “fought,” means literally “to engage in conflict.” The word was used in the context of competing in athletic games or engaging in military conflict. Paul’s “good fight” included an astonishing series of dangers and indignities. Even in these he proclaimed his victory in Christ: “Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

⁶ For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. Most likely Paul was referring to the Old Testament “drink offering”, in which wine would be poured out on the place of sacrifice.  

In Genesis 35:14, when Jacob set up the pillar for worship at Bethel, he consecrated it by “pouring out a drink offering on it.”  There was a similar ritual commanded in the Law: in Exodus 29, it says the priests were to offer a “drink offering” of wine along with the lamb of the burnt offering. 

*They would pour the wine out as part of the sacrifice that was offered. Paul was comparing his LIFE to this drink offering.  He said, “I am being poured out as a drink offering.”  He compared himself to that glass of wine.  Just as that wine was poured out on the altar of sacrifice, or on the ground, so he saw HIS LIFE as being poured out as a sacrifice for the Lord’s work.

*The soap opera “Days of Our Lives”, in its famous opening sequence is actually very appropriate here: “Like sands from the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”  That picture is right on target: our hours, our days, are being poured out – one after the other after the other. 

In a sense, EVERYBODY”s life is being poured out.  Some are pouring their lives out for their job.  Some are pouring their lives out for sports.  Some are pouring their lives out for their own “pursuit of happiness” — whatever that involves.  And the truth is, when you “pour out” your life like that, it can lead to a wasted life. *Shawne Thomas

I remind you, A New Year begins soon, 12 months untested untried and while unknown to us, they are fully known to Him! How will you spend the days ahead? 

Departure here, is an interesting word! It’s the idea of an Army breaking camp, or like a ship leaving the dock……what are you doing about that part of you that will live forever, before it’s time for you to go?