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If You Can...

           Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth (II Timothy 2:15)

“‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”

Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”

 When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” (Mark 9:23-25)

 This is another of those verses that spins the regulator on the pressure cooker of our lives. When the going gets rough we are to 1) present ourselves to God as one approved, 2) present ourselves to God as a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, 3) present ourselves to God as a worker who correctly handles the word of truth. It’s easier than it sounds, because a one is approved by being a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed, and one is a worker who doesn’t need to be ashamed by correctly handling the word of truth.

It’s important, then, to know what it means to correctly handle the word of truth. Here’s a link to a document that gives some good guidelines for correctly doing so: HAClass7Principles.pdf (goldcountrycalvary.com)

          All that has been said to this point ignores the first three words of the passage. Do your best. We are like the man is the second passage. Scripture tells us to be perfect, and if you’re like me, you writhe under that burden. The whole of the Law presses down on us. Our tiniest failure, even if it’s a mathematical mistake and not a sin, tangles around our feet like a bear-trap. We’ve failed. Again. We’ve lost count of how often and how much we’ve failed.

          Sometimes, we think we’ve failed so much that it’s no use crying out to God to help us in our unbelief, or our faithlessness, or our weakness, or our failures. We have not done as we should, perfectly, so what use is there. We haven’t done our best, because our best would be nothing less than perfection. Why bother?

          What if “our best” means to do what we can at the time, under the conditions faced? What if “our best” means to withstand the temptation for one second longer than we did last time? And, we must remember that the “best” that we are to do has to do with correctly handling the Word of God – not with preaching the gospel X times a day (with a 100% conversion rate), or performing some other miracles.

          What if our best means that if we didn’t do as well as we would like to have done, that we have learned something that will allow us to do better next time? Spin that regulator. Let some of the pressure escape from the pressure cooker. You’re not in the Olympics. You’re living a life, and failure today doesn’t mean failure forever, if you do your best.

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