Flee and Pursue

11But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, 14to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

Taken from 1 Timothy 6, these verses remind us why we are to run, and in essence what we live for.

We are people of God. So we must run from anything that takes us away from God, be it the stuff of this world, or false teaching, or anything else. Just RUN from it.

I was talking with my Sunday School student on Sunday, and she told me that sometimes things make her feel all scared inside and like she should run away from it but that she wasn't sure if she should... I told her that wasn't a bad feeling. When things happened that made her feel like that (she was talking about wanting to do bad stuff or being around bad stuff) that she should do what God tells her to... RUN away. As fast as she could. God tells us to run, so we should! Running is not a bad thing to do. :)

Even though we are to run away from the "bad stuff" in life, we are also charged to run after (to pursue) other things.

• We are to pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness.
  
• We are fight the good fight of the faith.
• We are to take hold of the eternal life we are called to
• We are to take hold of the confession we made before witnesses (I think this is talking about when we publically confess our faith in Christ, this would be something we can cling to)
  

So yes Run away from the bad, but don't run aimlessly. Run with a purpose toward God and that which you know is yours (in faith). Fight, cling, hold on.... our faith in God is an active faith.

And Paul here charges Timothy, and therefore us to keep the commandment of God unstained and free from reproach until Christ's return. In the presence of God(the life-giver) and in Christ Jesus (who didn't bow under the pressure of Pontius Pilate) Paul made that charge to Timothy. That Charge is the same one we face today. We must do all we can to keep the gospel of God fre from reproach, to pursue those things set before us: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness. We must not let his word be changed. This we are charged, as believers in the one true God, to do.

And who is this Christ that we claim, who is our example?

• the blessed and only Sovereign
• the king of kings
• the one who will return at the proper time
• the Lord of lords
• the one who alone has immortalilty
• the one who dwells in unapproachable light
• the one who no one can ever really see

This is the one to who we owe our honour. To him be eternal dominion.

Amen.