People everywhere believe “this, that or the other,” but it’s like the old fellow says, “It’s not what you know, but who you know that counts.” One of the Bible verses that has stood out to  me like a solitary, tough, battered old cedar on a craggy cliff over the years is this one: “If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself.” (2 Timothy 2:13).

Some time ago I posted an article titled, “The Faith That Pleases God,” and it would be worth reading again for this context. [1] The idea for this one, however, stems from the realization that God’s purposes are front and center, and any contrary beliefs are not worth their weight in gold. They are worthless and useless. The context of that statement gives some body to the thinking of Paul and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit:

“It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with Him, we shall also live with Him: If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him: if we deny Him, He also will deny us: If we believe not, yet He abideth faithful: He cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:11-13).

A brother in Christ some years ago observed that God views the whole world through the keyhole of the gospel. It has been that way from before time began, according to Titus1:2, where Paul declares himself “in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.”

So when Adam and Eve disobeyed and brought deadly sinfulness into the life of mankind, it was no surprise to God. Adam and Eve covered their nakedness with fig leaves, but even then they were not able to face God, and they hid themselves. As John would later write, “Men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). God then came to them, took the skins of animals and made adequate coverings for them. Why were they adequate in God’s eyes? Later on, He told Moses the answer, in Leviticus 17:11:

“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to  you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.”

So God’s plan was put in place at the beginning, but not the way the Hebrew people envisioned it, apparently. Even though the Old Testament Scriptures repeatedly point to a coming, more adequate blood sacrifice, even to a full account, in detail, how it would be accomplished (Isaiah 53), they were not prepared for it.

Even after His disciples were with Him for three years, saw Him crucified, buried and then rise from the tomb to be with them for forty days, they still did not understand His plan. Their last question was, “Lord, will you restore the kingdom to Israel at this time?” (Acts1:6).

He basically said, “Not now.” And added, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8), repeating the Great Commission of carrying out His plan’s next step.

The two angels, who then appeared, as Jesus ascended into heaven in a cloud said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11).

In this scene, Jesus and the two angels revealed the next two steps to God’s plan—preaching the gospel around the world, and then Jesus would come back. And this simple departure from His small body of believers will be like His return for His believers—quietly, “like a thief in the night,” and they will be with Him forever. He will meet them in a cloud, then, but later on, He will come back with all His saints as a conquering army and will remain on the earth for one thousand years of theocratic rule, ”with a rod of iron.”

Despite all the arguments to the contrary, it is obvious that Jesus is not ruling the earth from heaven’s throne while Satan is bound in the bottomless pit. That declaration that He will rule all nations “with a rod of iron” speaks of the rule of Jesus from the throne of David in Jerusalem, a coming event (Revelation 12:5).

It is interesting how the truth of that verse that opened this article, 2 Timothy 2:13, proves itself. It makes that old standby excuse, “I’ll believe it when I see it,” fall into shattered pieces. Consider the proclamations of Isaiah 53 that portrays the future death, burial and resurrection of Jesus with astounding clarity in details that are irrefutable. Yet, when it actually came to pass, it was unbelievable and was rejected. Pre-conceived ideas intervened and destroyed what could have been a gigantic transformation of life to the many.

The dramatic conversion of Saul of Tarsus, who came to be known as Paul, the apostle, baffled many, and when he and his team came to Thessalonica, the civic leaders rallied their peers with the cry, “Those who have turned the world upside down have now come here!” When Paul told King Festus how he had been changed by a risen Christ, the response with a loud voice, was, “Paul, you are beside yourself! Much learning is driving you mad!” (Acts 26:24).

In Genesis 12 and 16 are the accounts of God’s promise and covenant to and with Abraham, that the land He was promising Abraham and his physical descendants would be theirs forever. Even the covenant was one-sided. God made it His solitary promise, showing that it did not hinge on anything Abraham nor his descendants would ever do or not do.

Later on, when the Jewish people disobeyed and rejected Him, God scattered them into all the nations but promised to bring them back to the land at a future time, for “His own namesake” (Ezekiel 36:22-24). Think of that opening verse again, “If we believe not, yet He abides faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”  

And again, when the times and the seasons were right, He brought them back to the land and restored its kingdom sovereignty. There are many who have maintained that God changed His mind on His promises to Abraham and now those promises belong to the church. But it is clear in the Scriptures that God does not deny Himself. He is unchangeable.

When God revealed the substance of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream to Daniel—the statue that was divided up into representations of future kingdoms of the world—it projected all the way into the future of our days. But God was not seeing them with just His foreknowledge as situations that _would occur in the future. He was identifying them as events that He would bring to pass. He was foretelling the future that He would create.

Likewise, it is an interesting statement that Jesus made after Peter identified Him as “the Christ, the Son of the living God” in John 6:69. He said to them, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” And we see that God makes His own plan, and works out His own plan.

Are you wondering how we came to this time and have the types of leaders in our country and in other countries of the world? As Psalm 75:6-8 says, “For exaltation comes neither from the east nor from the west nor from the south but God is the Judge: He puts down one and exalts another, for in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red. It is fully mixed, and He pours it out. Surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth drain and drink down.”

God puts people in leadership and other positions, whether or not believers, to accomplish His purpose, just as He did with Cyrus, king of Persia, who issues the decree to restore the temple in Ezra’s day. And Jesus said to Peter, in John 6:70, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?”

It seems impossible that anyone reading and studying the Scriptures with an open mind, and a heart surrendered to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—to not soon realize that our redemption is in the hands of the One determined that His plan of salvation would not become corrupted by any input from mankind. Perhaps we can see the source of those attempts to corrupt the truths of the gospel in the answer Jesus gave to Peter when the latter tried to turn the Lord away from His goal of the cross in Matthew 16:22-23:

“Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!’ But He turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.’”

Therefore it is extremely important and meaningful to me that I am among those who are “kept by the power of God” (1 Peter 1:5) in His salvation and ready to be revealed in the last day, not in the strength of my own faith but in His faithfulness.

Endnotes                                                                                                                                                         [1] Article referenced: If you would like a copy, send a request by email below.

Contact email:  andwegetmercy@gmail.com

The apostle Paul declared himself to be “less than the least of the saints” and “I am the least of the apostles” (Ephesians 3:8 and 1 Corinthians 15:9), yet he had all of the credentials of education, dedication and loyalty that any human being could ever even hope for among mankind. What, then, was his problem? Was he making a show of humility in order to impress his audiences?

Not so! Paul, formerly Saul of Tarsus, the man who had obtained all of those credentials, had learned the secret of spiritual life in a true relationship with Jesus, the Christ.

When Stephen was stoned to death, as reported in Acts 7, after his penetrating and convicting message to the Jewish leaders, his clothing was laid at the feet of a young man named Saul (Acts 7:58).  And this Saul then went about persecuting those new believers in Christ with great intensity.

On his way to Damascus on the hunt for those believers he was struck down by a bright light and a voice, asking, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads” (Acts 9:4-5).

From that encounter, Saul was blinded for three days. A man named Ananias was sent by God to take him to Damascus and take care of him. After his eyesight was restored, Saul was baptized and went immediately to the synagogue to preach Jesus to the Jews.

What a shock it was to him that he and his message were rejected, and he had to escape for his life, being let down the outside wall of the city from a window in a basket. It was a humiliating event, as he recounts in 2 Corinthians 11:32-33.  Apparently he went to Arabia for three years before returning to Damascus and later, Jerusalem (Galatians 1:16-18).

Saul, now known by his Greek name of Paul, experienced a rejection much like that of Moses who also was rejected by his Hebrew kinsmen before he was ready to take up his calling from God. Out of this experience and finally, the reality that God was calling Him, Paul, to be the apostle to the Gentiles, not the Jews, it appears Paul came to learn that all of his credentials amounted to nothing but rubbish as far as his usefulness to God was concerned. It would not be Paul’s expertise that would turn the Gentiles to Christ but the Spirit of God working through him.

Therefore, he recounts the Lord’s words to him in 2 Corinthians 12:9 in answer to his pleas:

“And He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Paul admits he was a persecutor of the church of God, a murderer, the chief of sinners in his writings and tells Timothy, “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12).

And to the Philippians he also makes this notable declaration, “Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14).

Earlier, in verse 10, he had identified his goal was to “…be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.”

Did Paul have an inside look at forgiveness that perhaps you and I have not reached? (But perhaps I speak only for myself.) Simply put, Paul believed God for forgiveness of his sordid past and that takes a certain determination of the will in the face of the deepest feelings of remorse and guilt.

That first of the nine Beattitudes in Matthew 5:3 is not just accidentally in that first position. It is the foundation for all of the other eight, and in fact, the foundation for all spiritual life of faith in Jesus Christ. It says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” An assumption seems to be made in that wording, and this paraphrase is suggested for clarity: “the truly happy are those who realize their spiritual poverty, for then they have access to things of the kingdom of heaven.”

Thus Paul knew he had no spiritual capital whatever, and yet, he was proclaimed by God to be a joint heir with Christ. The Living Bible paraphrases Galatians 4:7 like this:

“Now we are no longer slaves but God’s own sons. And since we are his sons, everything he has belongs to us, for that is the way God planned.”

Note that the wording uses the inclusive “we” to mean all believers!

Therefore Paul could write with confidence and conviction these truths:

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13).

“My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

 “Being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).

“He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).

In 2 Corinthians 6:3-10 Paul describes the various difficulties he and his team experienced with an attitude that would not be offensive to the gospel they preached and ended the list in verse 10 with a summation of how they regarded themselves:

“…As sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.”

Therein is the display of surrendered dependency, the essence of the realization of personal spiritual poverty—the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus that Paul was seeking.

However, we must not forget that Paul was a man born of Adam just like the rest of us, lest we put him on a pedestal and unknowingly, perhaps, worship him as an idol. He wrote in Romans 12:3, “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.”

The crucial part of knowing our real poverty in spiritual matters is knowing, honestly, who we really are in our Adam-riddled nature. He openly displays that side of himself in Romans 7:14-25, where the dynamic struggle between flesh and spirit is told:

“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.

I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.”

It is apparent just how intentional Paul was in his commitment to  “serve the law of God with his mind,” a commitment of the will, when he noted his action to make sure it was done, and he was not a hypocrite:

“Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. ²⁷ But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”  (1 Corinthians 9:26-27).

Paul had a clear understanding of redemption and its effect on him when he wrote this in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.”

He understood that he would, then, submit to the Lord working in him to accomplish his calling. That is the basis of his directive in Philippians 2:12-13:

“…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.”

Likewise Paul was not one to embrace what now seems to be a central practice of socialism, for he worked at tent-making when necessary (Acts 18:3) and admonished the Thessalonians that “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

His was a high calling, but he did not have a different path to follow than that which God has given us, fellow believers in the Body of Christ. He could challenge us to follow in his footsteps as he followed Christ:

“Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.

^“Brethren, join in following my example, and note those who so walk, as you have us for a pattern” (Philippians 3:15-17).

  A good starting place, once we are saved, is told to us by Jesus in Matthew 6:33:

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”  

Contact email:  andwegetmercy@gmail.com