The 260 Journey

Day 201

Today’s Reading: Titus 1

A deacon sent in his apologies for the Sunday morning service, claiming that he was ill with the flu. One of the church members, however, said he had seen the deacon on his way to a baseball game. After the service, the minister visited the deacon. “Brother,” he said. “I have information that you were not sick at all this morning, but went to watch a ball game.” The deacon protested and was angry: “That’s a vicious lie about me! I’ll show you my fish to prove it!”

Men lie, but God doesn’t. That’s the message of Titus 1. And Paul wants that to be clear for the young pastor, Titus, who is dealing with a culture of lying and deceit on the isle of Crete, as he embarks on a mission in a new area for the gospel.

Consider some of the biggest lies ever told:

The check is in the mail.

I’ll start my diet tomorrow.

Give me your number, and the doctor will call you right back.

One size fits all.

It’s not the money, it’s the principle of the thing.

Even though we are not seeing each other anymore, we can still be friends.

I’ve never done anything like this before.

This hurts me more than it hurts you.

Your table will be ready in a few minutes.

Open wide, it won’t hurt a bit.

A study done by researchers at Michigan State University found that the average number of lies people tell a day are 1.6—that means we lie about five hundred times a year!

A 2004 study at Temple University School of Medicine found that lying takes more brain energy than telling the truth. Researchers divided participants into two groups. They asked those in the first group to shoot a toy gun and then lie and say they didn’t do it. Those in the second group watched what happened and then told the truth about it. An MRI machine indicated that the liars had to use seven areas of the brain in their response. By comparison, those who told the truth only used four areas of the brain.

We serve a God who always tells the truth. In theology we call it the veracity of God. Titus 1 starts off with reminding us of this fact. Paul is writing to Titus who used to be his travel companion. Paul led Titus to Christ, which is why he calls him “my true child in the faith.” Paul has left Titus at Crete to bring things in order there. And the first thing that Paul reminds Titus is that whatever God says is true because God cannot lie:

"From Paul, God’s willing slave and an apostle of Jesus, the Anointed One, to Titus. I’m writing you to further the faith of God’s chosen ones and lead them to the full knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness, which rests on the hope of eternal life. God, who never lies, has promised us this before time began." (Titus 1:1-2, TPT)

Paul is telling Titus that he knows he left him in a place where a lot of lying is going on. And he tells Titus in verses 10-12 that Titus is surrounded by liars and deceivers. That is why Paul wants him to know one thing, and the people there need to know it also: that God cannot lie. It’s the veracity of God.

The word veracity means habitual truth. It means you always tell the truth. God not only tells the truth but designed us to do the same. He knows our body works better when we tell the truth. A USA Today article lists body signals of lying, which include: increased blinking and pupil dilation; a facial expression incongruous with what’s being said; increased body movement (especially hand gestures); shorter sentences; more speaking pauses and errors; more negative words and extreme words. Think about it. Why do lie-detector tests work? Authorities can tell we are lying because of our heart rate, sweat, tone of voice, and other factors that are all indicators that a person is lying. A lie-detector test figures out a person is lying by the reaction of their body—which shows that we were created to tell the truth!

God who cannot lie is a huge statement. That means God can be completely trusted. When God speaks, we can believe it.

When Paul says, “God cannot lie,” he is making more than a statement. He is laying a foundational stone for Christianity. Our Christianity rises or falls on the veracity of God. The Bible is the Word of God. And if God cannot lie, then it is the truth of God. They are not just words spoken but truth spoken.

The assurance and comfort we have today as we do the 260 Journey is that every chapter we read we can believe, because God is telling the truth and we can believe Him. He is absolutely consistent with what He says and what He does. There are no fluctuations.

Paul ends the chapter by reminding Titus that even people will lie about serving Jesus. It’s called duplicity—their words and actions don’t match. It’s dishonesty. Here is what Paul says: “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are disgusting, disobedient, and disqualified from doing anything good” (Titus 1:16, TPT).

We serve a God who is the opposite of duplicitous, He is trustworthy. God is honest, He tells the truth, God cannot lie.

Day 200

Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 4

Let me give you an apostle Paul timeline. Paul’s conversion is in Acts 9 around AD 34. Second Timothy is his last letter and that is in AD 67. He writes it thirty-three years after the day he met Jesus. Paul’s entrance into the ministry is in Acts 13, in AD 48—fourteen years after his salvation experience on the road to Damascus. So he has been preaching and in full-time ministry for about two decades. Now two verses before he is about to pen his last words ever, he throws in a sentence of mystery: “Erastus remained at Corinth, but Trophimus I left sick at Miletus” (2 Timothy 4:20).

Paul couldn’t leave well enough alone. He has to say something in regards to sickness and Christians. Only someone who has been in ministry for as long as the apostle can throw that sentence in his final letter. The Trophimus mystery is the mystery every Christian battles: why are people still sick when Jesus heals?

At some point in our lives we have asked those questions either for ourselves or others. Paul’s seven words leave us hanging, longing for the answer: But Trophimus I left sick at Miletus. The man who God used to bring healing to people’s lives leaves a seven-year companion sick in Miletus. Paul has healed people in Acts 14, 19, 20, and 28, but not 2 Timothy 4.

Paul heals others, but Trophimus he leaves sick. It doesn’t seem to make sense. Everyone he heals in the book of Acts he does not know personally, but Trophimus he does. So why has he left this one sick at Miletus?

There is much speculation but no definitive answer. Some say divine chastisement. Some say he might not have had faith to be healed. And some put it on Paul: “Paul healed in Lystra and cast out demons in Philippi and wrought miracles in Ephesus but he failed with Trophimus.”

We do not know the answer. Paul does a lot. But I like knowing that Paul’s track record isn’t perfect. There is a sick guy in Miletus.

Whatever the answer is, there are times we must leave Trophimus sick at Miletus. We may win many to Christ but not everyone. There is always one. There are scores of answered prayers but there are some for whom God says no, and the prayer is like Trophimus, left without an answer.

Miletus is one spot on the map where a man was not healed. We will have our Miletus too. I am rather glad for Trophimus here in the Bible. I am helped by the fact that we don’t have this unbroken record of successes and that everything Paul did was a success. I could not keep up with that. The great Baptist preacher Vance Havner said we must “leave room for Trophimus, allow for a Miletus to be somewhere along your journey.”

Some days are sick days. Some days are “I blew it” days. “One of the reasons why mature people stop growing and learning,” says John Gardner, “is that they become less and less willing to risk failure.” Because someone didn’t get healed doesn’t mean we stop praying for people. Just because they did not respond the right way when we shared Jesus with them doesn’t mean we stop telling people the Good News. I’m glad Trophimus is in the Bible. And we need to remember that Trophimus being left sick in Miletus does not diminish Paul or his work or his character.

Former figure skating Olympic gold medalist Scott Hamilton and his wife, Tracie, have four children, including two adopted from Haiti. While he was pursuing his success as a skater, he once said he dropped out of church involvement and started what he jokingly called “The Church of Scott.” But through the love of his wife and other Christians, he came to a sincere faith in Christ. Rooted in his faith, Hamilton had an interesting take on dealing with personal sin and failure. In a 2018 New York Times interview, Hamilton said: “I calculated once how many times I fell during my skating career—41,600 times. But I got up all 41,600 times. That’s the muscle you have to build in you—the one that reminds you to just get up.”

Trophimus in 2 Timothy 4 is a mystery. I really do think Paul prayed for his friend and believed for his friend’s healing. But Trophimus was not healed. And that’s okay, because I’m okay with having spots in my Christian walk with mystery. Evelyn Underhill said it like this: “If the Reality of God was small enough to be grasped, it would not be great enough to be adored.”

I think God leaves mystery moments in our faith walk, which means mystery in our faith walk doesn’t have to necessarily bring doubt but it can inspire adoration. Doubt comes when we feel as though we are owed an explanation. Adoration comes when we realize we are involved with Someone way bigger than we are. Let’s adore Him even in the mystery.

Day 199

Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 3

Biblical prophecy provides some of the greatest encouragement and hope available to us today. Just as the Old Testament is saturated with prophecies concerning Christ’s first coming, so both the Old Testament and the New Testament are filled with references to the second coming of Christ. One scholar has estimated there are 1,845 references to Christ’s second coming in the Old Testament, where seventeen books give it prominence. In the 260 chapters of the New Testament, there are 318 references to the second coming of Jesus. That means one out of every thirty verses talk about Jesus coming again. And twenty-three of the twenty-seven New Testament books refer to it. For every prophecy in the Bible concerning Christ’s first coming, there are eight that look forward to His second coming!

Both of Paul’s letters to Timothy speak of Christ’s second coming. And in today’s chapter, Paul warns Timothy about the condition of humanity just before Christ comes again. The prophetic words he gives to the young pastor are not only chilling but eye opening—because the condition he describes can be easily attributed to our culture today. That means we are closer than ever to the second coming of Jesus.

Billy Graham said, “Some years ago, my wife, Ruth, was reading the draft of a book I was writing. When she finished a section describing the terrible downward spiral of our nation’s moral standards and the idolatry of worshiping false gods such as technology and sex, she startled me by exclaiming, ‘If God doesn’t punish America, He’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.’”

Consider what Paul says about what the planet will look like before Jesus comes:

"In the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power." (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

Paul gives nineteen descriptions in verses 2-4 to distinguish what humanity will look like and how they will be controlled. What is striking is that five of them have to do with love. It is a misdirected love, a misconstrued love, a deceptive love. It’s humanity not loving the One for whom they were created but finding a very bad substitute.

Look at what they love instead of God: self, money, pleasure. Then look at the other two: they are unloving or without love and not lovers of God. The phrase without love or unloving means without true love. It means that people today are not without love—it’s just the wrong love.

Paul wants to warn Timothy that when people are not lovers of God, they will start to believe that “there is no God, and since there is no God, let us start loving other things—self, money, and pleasure.”

But we also find hope in these verses. Notice what verse one tells us: “In the last days difficult times will come . . .” Paul is saying, In the last days, Satan will unleash his worst—but God will unleash His best.

Remember those words, In the last days. There is another section of Scripture that starts off with those words. It’s found in Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:

“It shall be in the last days,” God says, “that I will pour forth of My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on My bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit and they shall prophesy.” (Acts 2:17-18)

Wow! That is so encouraging. That means the second coming of Jesus is not to discourage us but to encourage us. As the nineteenth-century preacher, G. Campbell Morgan said:

To me the second coming is the perpetual light on the path which makes the present bearable. I never lay my head on the pillow without thinking that perhaps before the morning breaks, the final morning may have dawned. I never begin my work without thinking that perhaps He may interrupt my work and begin His own. This is now His word to all believing souls, “Till I come.” We are not looking for death, we are looking for Him.

Early on during World War II, the Japanese army stormed the Philippines and forced United States General Douglas MacArthur to leave the islands. Upon leaving the Philippines, General MacArthur declared his famous promise, “I shall return.” And he did, walking ashore a victor at Leyte in the Philippines several years later. There is a more famous “I shall return.” This one from the Captain of the hosts, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who declared to His fearful band of disciples, “I will come again” (John 14:3).

Day 198

Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 2

Bill Bright has been one of the most influential Christian leaders of our generation. He and his wife, Vonette, founded Campus Crusade for Christ , which is now active in 190 countries, and consists of 26,000 staff members and an additional 553,000 trained volunteers, who work on campuses and in various settings around the world. Campus Crusade also produced the Jesus film that has been seen by more than 5.5 billion people to date, and the “I Found It” campaign, which swept the globe in 1975 and brought millions more to Christ. Bill also wrote more than one hundred books. He wrote his last one, The Journey Home, when he was slowly and painfully losing his battle with a debilitating illness called pulmonary fibrosis.

This is how his physician told him he didn’t have much longer to live:

'He sat me down one day—Vonette and me—in his office and said, “You don’t seem to realize what’s happening to you. You’re dying. It’s worse than cancer. It’s worse than heart trouble. We can deal with these in some measure, but nobody can help you with pulmonary fibrosis. You are going to die a miserable death. You need to get your head out of the sand and be prepared for it.”

So I said, “Well, praise the Lord. I’ll see the Lord sooner than I’d planned.”'

American poet W. H. Auden wrote, “Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic.” Think about that. While everyone is eating and enjoying the day, we all know there is an end. One Puritan writer said, “If you attempt to talk with a dying man about sports or business, he is no longer interested. He now sees other things as more important. People who are dying recognize what we often forget, that we are standing on the brink of another world.”

Second Timothy is the apostle Paul’s “long journey home” book. This is number fourteen of Paul’s letters. It’s his last one. And it's an investment into leaders and, more specifically, young leaders. Former United States Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, said, “The task of the leader is to get their people from where they are to where they have not been.” This was the charge Paul gave Timothy:

"No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules. The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops." (2 Timothy 2:4-6)

In this challenge to Timothy, Paul uses three images: a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer. With each of these images and examples, Paul specified something importantly inherent in each of them: to be effective.

Be a soldier. If you are in active service, you don’t entangle yourself in the affairs of everyday life. Or as one version says: “For every soldier called to active duty must divorce himself from the distractions of this world” (TPT). The soldier sees the big picture. He is not distracted by minutiae, but is in it to please the One who enlisted Him. The soldier lives for his General.

Be an athlete. Compete according to the rules. There are no shortcuts to winning. Paul is saying the prize is for those who keep the rules. With so many performance-enhancing drugs hitting professional athletes today, it’s a perfect example of trying to cut corners to win. Winning in the Christian life has no shortcuts. It may be a longer path and journey but God is doing something in your training.

Be a farmer. He is referred to as the hard-working farmer. Hard work gets results. The fruit of the farmer’s labor is inevitable; a crop comes because of his commitment to that field. In God’s Kingdom, it seems God gives promises, but they are not automatic. God gives the children of Israel the promised land, but Joshua has to fight for it for seven years. Work hard and stay diligent.

Leadership calls for those who see the bigger picture, those who don’t take shortcuts, and those who work hard. One of my favorite writers is W. H. Griffith Thomas. He gave this priceless insight to young preachers: “Think yourself empty, read yourself full, write yourself clear, pray yourself keen—then enter the pulpit and let yourself go!”

That’s what Paul did for young Timothy.

Day 197

Today’s Reading: 2 Timothy 1

The apostle Paul gets three verses into Timothy’s second letter as a young pastor and reminds him that serving God must be done with a clear conscience: “Timothy, I thank God for you—the God I serve with a clear conscience, just as my ancestors did. Night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers” (2 Timothy 1:3, NLT).

Serving God with a clear conscience. This is paramount in our relationship with God. For the most part a clear conscience helps us to know the voice of God. One of my dear friends and mentors Winkie Pratney said: “A clear conscience is absolutely essential for distinguishing between the voice of God and the voice of the enemy. Unconfessed sin is a prime reason why many do not know God’s will.”

Your conscience is where you hear the whisper of God and feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The old saying goes, “Conscience does not keep you from doing anything. It just keeps you from enjoying it.” I love a small boy’s definition of what the conscience is: “something that makes you tell your mother before your sister does.” A clear conscience makes you stop before it’s too late. It helps you to slam on the brakes before you say and do something that you will regret later.

So many people skip a clear conscience and keep going till consequences show up. And so many Christians assume it’s okay to blow by the warning of their conscience and to continue on when really God has given us a mechanism to pause before moving forward.

Our goal is to have a clear conscience. There are different types of violated consciences in the New Testament, which are important for us to take note of. It comes after a conscience that was not kept clear:

• Paul warns Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:2 of a seared conscience.

• Paul tells Titus in Titus 1:15 to be aware of a defiled conscience.

• The writer of Hebrews in Hebrews 10:22 warns of an evil conscience.

I believe that every time we fail to keep our consciences clear, you border on a defiled or evil or even seared conscience. Do not dismiss conviction. It’s the brake for moving forward into regret. Many of us have regrets because we did not respond to conviction. And so it’s important for us to respond to conviction instead of waiting for consequences.

What makes us stop and pause? Conviction or being caught?

Conviction is when we feel something deep inside that is like an alarm telling us there is an intruder. Embarrassment will make us stop late, but conviction will go deeper to make us seriously pause early.

Have you ever been in the middle of a conversation and were about to say something that was not edifying about a person, something that was gossip, and you felt this feeling, Don’t say it. That’s God’s warning mechanism for a clear conscience.

Don’t finish that statement. Don’t start that joke—it compromises who you are. Don’t . . .

Stay in tune with the whisper of God. That will promote a clear conscience every single day, not just on Sundays at church. When you serve God seven days a week, you fight every day to keep a clear conscience.

There was a ship that had a regular route from California to Colombia. One day shortly before leaving for California, some drug dealers sent the ship’s captain a message that offered him $500,000 to allow a small shipment of drugs to get through to the United States. The captain replied with a no. On his next three trips, they raised the offer each time until they reached $2 million. He hesitated, and then said, “Maybe.” Then he contacted the FBI, which set up a sting operation, and the drug dealers were arrested. One of the FBI agents asked the captain, “Why did you wait until they got to $2 million before contacting us?” The captain replied, “They were getting close to my price.”

Do you have a price? Is it 20 percent off a coat or a dress using your friend’s employee discount, which belongs to them and not you? But since they said they would buy it and you can pay them back, it must be okay? It isn’t. Don’t violate your conscience. Keep it clear. As A. W. Tozer said: “An honest man is strange when in the midst of dishonest men, but it is a good kind of strangeness.”

The story goes that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels, played a prank on five of the most prominent men in England. He sent an anonymous note to each one that said simply, “All is found out. Flee at once.” Within twenty-four hours, all five men had left the country. Their conscience wasn’t clear.

What if you received that note? Would you have left or stayed?