Good form

Where are we at in the timeline? When God set out to create this universe, and when time began He knew when the end would come. We march along each day as if our lives, our world will go on forever. Now, I'm not a doomsayer. I don't, and won't suggest anyone dwell on the possibility of the end of the world. God tells us not to worry in Matthew 6:25-27. I trust in Him and have hope in His Glory.

Yet, for so many generations it seems that the words Paul spoke in his second letter to Timothy are revealed in more ways, more often than ever before. He wrote in chapter 3, verses 1-5: "But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God - having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them."

I see in this passage the same things I see in the world day today. I see this on the news, I see this on the street, in our schools, our governments, our places of work. Most unsettling to me is that I see this in myself, and in my church. Not as obviously as I see it in many other places, but it is there. Not always, and perhaps on many days not at all, but it's always lying there...waiting. And on any given day it rears its ugly head.

I will see a Porsche Carrera and love the idea of money. I achieve a success and proudly boast of it to friends and family. A kindness is received which I fail to return because the person was obligated to the task anyway. I skate through a day ignoring the love of my family due to the importance of my busy schedule. An unknown, and unimportant person cuts me off in traffic and I think scathing thoughts about the idiotic behavior of other people. I would never do that as I roll through a stop sign in my rush to an appointment. I claim to others the awesome strength and power of God to whom I owe all things, and then spend the rest of my week fulfilling my goals.

I'm not as bad as I could be, not as bad as I have been, but on any given day my form of godliness denies His power. I pray that I will submit with all my failings and rely on the strength of God, the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.