Power, love, and a little self control...

2 Timothy 1:6 says, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of POWER, LOVE, AND SELF DISCIPLINE."

That sounds FANTASTIC!  I love watching football, so the first thing I think of when I see the word power is a big hit on the grid iron!  God's hand at work is powerful.  Love is all around us, it's always moving, never ending, and never fails  (1 Cor. 13).  Last but not least, self control/discipline is something that I would boldly claim is basically unheard of in today's world.  Not forgotten, but we live in a greed filled society that strives off of a very fast paced, always needing something-hunger.

Alright, so let's dive in a little deeper here.  How often do we let ourselves fear who we are in Christ? Love? Self discipline?  I'll be completely honest, I'm weary about letting myself go full on Christian in front of some people.  It's so much easier to do it in a church setting.  It's hard to find balance in a world that doesn't always accept beliefs.  A good friend of mine told me this, "we can say that beliefs and opinions are fine, until someone disagrees with your opinion."  -It's all downhill from there.- 

Ah, that word that we all....well....LOVE!  Love is beautiful eh?  It really is.  The picture of the cross really reminds of me of what today's love to the world looks like big picture.  Let me break that down more.  Picture Jesus' death on the cross, bloody and gruesome right?  But he loved us through the ugliness and harshness of all of it.  Fast forward to today.  Loving this world that's exactly that, harsh and ugly is a difficult task.  So when we're loving on this world, I'm reminded of the famous words in God's word (I hope that makes sense.  Basically what I was picturing Is that Jesus love meets us anywhere.)

I have been using this verse lately at work, because in a work place and in life things get tough, and it's easy to be timid and fearful.  When things go wrong, that's usually our first instinct huh.  Sometimes I feel like just giving up.  Every once in a while I'll just want to walk out of the store and be done for the day.  One of the things I'm quickly reminded of is how Jesus didn't give up in his journey to the cross.  He did not just walk out.  Although multiple times in scripture he was given plenty of opportunity to walk out on God's plans. One of my favorites is when Jesus was tempted by satan in Luke 4. 

I'll continue this here after a while, wanted to post this due to it's length! Enjoy!