Distressing Times
Will Come
You must understand this, that in the
last days distressing times will come. For people will be lovers of themselves,
lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents,
ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes,
haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure
rather than lovers of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying
its power. Avoid them! For among them are those who make their way into
households and captivate silly women, overwhelmed by their sins and swayed by
all kinds of desires, who are always being instructed and can never arrive at a
knowledge of the truth. As Jannes and Jamres opposed Moses, so these people, of corrupt mind and
counterfeit faith, also oppose the truth. But they will not make much progress,
because as in the case of those two men, their folly will become plain to
everyone.
There is something within each of us
that values how we look on the outside more than who we are on the inside. It
causes some people to pad their importance so that they become puffed up with
pride. But it has no place in our lives as followers of Jesus.
Paul warned Timothy about people in
the church who had a form of godliness but denied its power.
We should not just talk like
Christians, we should be Christians in everything we do, everything we say, and
with everybody we meet.
God calls us
to
authentic living
today.
If you are
true to God,
you won’t be
false to others.
Our Daily
Bread –