Q1. Selfless Concern

[Karen11]

On 4/15/2005 at 9:27 AM, Pastor Ralph said:

Q1. (2:19-21) Why was Timothy's selfless concern so rare among church leaders? Rather than pointing the finger at others in your church, consider yourself. What things has Jesus had to deal with in your life that has helped you to become genuinely selfless and focused on the concerns of others? How has he refined you? (Of course, he is still at work in us!)

Most were often concerned with status and there own interest, Timothy had the true love of Jesus, walked as he walked.

He has showed me that love is meant to be shown not hidden, just for those in our family, that life here on earth is short to forgive as he has forgiven me.

To love someone even when they have hate in there heart for me.

[kupnsaucer1]

Apparently, Timothy had let the Lord work in him to refine him and mature him in such a way that he could love and serve more closely to the way Jesus did.  It is only as I let the Lord help me love sacrificially and as He has allowed the refining fires in my life that I have even begun to love selflessly.  I have in more recent years gone through a house fire where nearly all my worldly possession were ruined, yet I have watched the Lord take literal ashes and turn them into beauty both physically and spiritually.  Presently, I am going through some health issues that are teaching me to trust the Lord and let Him work in me as He wishes.  I have also in the last few weeks watched a dear friend and dynamic sister in the Lord die of cancer.  That was a huge lesson in loving and caring as well as giving up my will to God.  I have a long way to go in this area, but the Lord just keeps working away at the selfish places to transform my heart closer to His likeness.

[Krissi]

Selfless concern is rare in all of us, not just leaders. Selflessness -- dying to self -- is the apex of the Christian life and thus never attained. We do, slowly, approximate selflessness. We get better at dying to self, that is.

Failure, isolation, intense study, more isolation -- this has been God's method of changing me. I had so much that needed to be changed that I can't think of one thing in particular that helped me selflessly love, which I do not do often or consistently.

He is teaching me to not love people in an abstract manner, but in reality, to love the most unlovable people such as my atheistic father and not just great conversationalists! He's stripped me of all props in life, all the things I loved doing and being, and has reduced me to being a caretaker for an old man in his 94th year, my father.

One would think that the time I have spent helping my father die -- several years, now -- would bring us closer, but this has not happened. Still, I know God has me here for a reason, to re-tool me so I'm ready to go wherever He wants and do whatever He wishes me to do after my father dies. That's my horrible story of being refined. It's painful, lonely, humiliating, and isolating. It's totally unfulfilling. I hate every moment of it. In my darkness and emptiness, I have nothing but God. 

I think this is a typical story, actually. God makes most of us walk through a long valley until we are able to climb another mountain range. I'm in that valley. His refinement.