{"id":10121,"date":"2022-04-17T05:37:03","date_gmt":"2022-04-17T10:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-2-timothy-4\/"},"modified":"2022-03-23T15:08:24","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T20:08:24","slug":"devotional-on-2-timothy-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-2-timothy-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on 2 Timothy"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16234\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16234\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019691.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16234\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019691-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019691-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019691-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019691-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019691-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P8019691.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16234\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Redwoods National Park, CA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Ultimately only one thing matters<\/p>\n<p>2Timothy 4: But you \u2013 keep your eye on what you\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n<p>The Apostle has been around and he knows the score. He\u2019s had people he counted on let him down. Some couldn\u2019t help it. Sickness and other circumstances beyond their control have thrown a monkey wrench into their commitment to him. Others could help it but failed anyway, getting caught up in some religious fad or simply finding the going too hard. Timothy needs to be aware of all this. At times, people who should know better will want him to ease up on proclaiming the \u201ctake up your cross daily\u201d aspect of the gospel message. Something else will catch their eye and they\u2019ll want him to focus on that instead. Paul, who knows what he\u2019s talking about urges this young pastor to \u201ckeep your eye on what you\u2019re doing.\u201d More than being a pastor who wants to get along with people, he\u2019s \u201cGod\u2019s servant.\u201d Ultimately, what the congregation thinks is secondary to what God thinks. Even as Paul looks forward to receiving the Lord\u2019s approval he wants Timothy, and all of us, to keep this ultimate truth in mind. From my point of view, I want to please those who call me \u201cpastor.\u201d I don\u2019t want to disappoint them or to bore them with sermons that are somewhat less than timely. However, in the end, there\u2019s only one word of approval that matters. I know you know that this is true for pastors and for everyone else too.<\/p>\n<p>Take Away: We have only one Master and pleasing him is, ultimately, the only thing that really matters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ultimately only one thing matters 2Timothy 4: But you \u2013 keep your eye on what you\u2019re doing. The Apostle has been around and he knows the score. He\u2019s had people he counted on let him down. Some couldn\u2019t help it. Sickness and other circumstances beyond their control have thrown a monkey wrench into their commitment [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1483,1428],"tags":[1353,643,720,809,863],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10121"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10121"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16236,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10121\/revisions\/16236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}