Stay true to the truth of God’s Word

The Bible says, “If you know people who have wandered off from God’s truth, don’t write them off. Go after them. Get them back and you will have rescued precious lives from destruction” (vv. 19-20 MSG). That means it’s possible for a true believer to do this. It also means we must never put our convictions on the shelf. If we don’t make a deliberate effort to stay close to the truth of God’s Word, we will wander from it. After all, we live in a world with lots of distractions. Today many people are on a quest for “unity at all costs” and are therefore devaluing the importance of the truth as revealed in God’s Word. Knowing he would soon die as a martyr for his faith, the apostle Paul wrote to his successor Timothy: “Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of” (2 Timothy 3:14 NIV). Then in 2 Timothy 4:2-5, he encouraged Timothy: “Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship…discharge all the duties of your ministry” (NIV). So the word for you today is this: stay true to the truth of God’s Word.