POWER, LOVE AND SELF-DISCIPLINE

II Tim. 1:7-8a For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. So you must never be ashamed to tell others about our Lord.

God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, so why do we have it? Why is it that we are afraid to share the Gospel with those outside of the church? Why do we avoid conversations that require us to take a stand for the Gospel? Fear does not come from the Lord, so guess where it comes from.

God gives us the power to speak out for Him. We don’t speak out because we don’t have it; it’s because we don’t claim the power we have or use it. We have it, but we don’t cooperate with God and use it. We think too much about the circumstances and not enough about what we can do through Christ who gives us the strength and power to obey Him.

Perhaps another reason why we aren’t being active witnesses for Christ is that we lack genuine love for the lost. Let’s be honest; a lack of love for people plagues us. If we truly love others as Christ loves them we would care that they are lost and going to hell. If we were motivated by love we would do what we could do to help them see the Light and be saved.

Another thing that holds us back is we lack self-disciple. We do not train ourselves to be witnesses for Him. We are sloppy in our spiritual disciplines and thus too self-centered. We need to discipline ourselves in the things of God and if we do we will want to share Him with others.

We should never be ashamed to tell others about Christ. We should always count it a privilege to be the Lord’s mouthpieces. Let us be bold, put to use the power of God within us, and boldly be witnesses for Christ with both our words and deeds.