Morning Devotions: 1 Timothy 6:11-21 with a word study-guard

Before you begin I want to encourage you to read and pray through all of 1 Timothy 6:11-21 

O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called "knowledge" -- which some have professed and thus gone astray from the faith. Grace be with you.  1 Timothy 6:20-21 nasu

SHAMAR (all this work and I forgot an A; and that reference is John 14:15

We are the warriors of a hidden kingdom. We serve a king that we only see by faith. Even the weapons we use are unlike anything the world has. When we sharpen our weapon, it is actually we who are sharpened. We guard each other with love. We tie our hope to treasure we cannot see instead of to treasure that we can exchange for comfort and stuff. Because our kingdom is hidden, we are instructed to seek it, to look for it above anything else, knowing that as we do, the Almighty, our King, will supply us with everything we need.

But seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness; and all these things (needs) will be supplied to you. Matthew 6:33

Our fight is one of faith (a word that means stand firm on the Word of the Almighty... from the Hebrew word, a'men) In fact, it is the Word of God that is the treasure of the Kingdom. Like our King, Y’shua-Jesus, our treasure is in an earthen vessel.

2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;

I want to talk about what we do as warriors. We Guard the treasure of the Kingdom. The word guard comes from the Hebrew word, SHAMAR, which means to preserve, to put a protective hedge of thorns around it, to protect, to attend to it. We are not to hide it somewhere, we are to use the treasure to make it grow. (remember the good and faithful servant of Matthew 25:14-30?) In today’s passage, 1 Timothy 6:11-21, Paul told Timothy

…guard what has been entrusted to you, avoiding worldly and empty chatter and the opposing arguments of what is falsely called "knowledge"--  1 Timothy 6:20

The treasure of the Kingdom of God has been entrusted to you (if you are born again). We have a real enemy, one we cannot see with earthly eyes (Ephesians 6:12), but we can see evidence of how he works.

 
Worldly  and empty chatter.
Worldly is a Hebrew idea. It means anything that comes from outside the kingdom of the Almighty. For instance, yoga is about getting the body in balance in order to open your mind to the spiritual world. That is an example of “worldly” for a warrior of the kingdom. The Almighty himself has shown us the good and perfect way to stand before him and will not tolerate the way of the heathen.

Empty chatter is what we do to try to justify things like yoga. It leads nowhere. You either decide to seek first the Kingdom or you miss it because of compromise with the world.

Protect the Word of the Almighty and it will protect you, more then protect, it will provide everything your earthly vessel requires as you Seek the kingdom.

January 28, 2016
Mrs. Hagerty