Devotional from January 2025 Christian Union National Fast
By michael racine, Writer and Ministry Fellow, Christian Union Lux at Yale
We are living in a time of great changes, ripe with opportunity and fraught with danger. As trust in once-venerated institutions and authorities erodes, people are searching—for meaning, for purpose, and for anchors amid the swirling storm of competing truth claims. Many are turning, or returning, to the church, and for that we thank God. Meanwhile, many others are turning (or returning) to what a generation ago would have been near-universally laughed off as superstition—to psychics, tarot, and witchcraft—or cobbling together a faith of their own invention, mixing perhaps a bit of Buddhism, some yogic meditation, a dollop of post-modern relativism, and various Christian ideas divorced from the broader biblical vision.
The apostle Paul anticipated such rising superstition when he wrote to Timothy that “there shall be a time when they will not tolerate sound instruction, but according to their own desires they will accumulate teachers for themselves, their ears itching, and from the truth they will turn away their hearing, but to myths they will turn” (2 Tim 4:3–4). Foreseeing this, he urged Timothy to “proclaim the word, be ready in season and out of season, elucidate, rebuke, exhort, with all patience and instruction” (2 Tim 4:2). Paul gave this charge to Timothy, his protégé, because he himself had already finished his assignment and would soon depart this world to be with Jesus:
I have fought the good fight, I have completed the course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth is stored up for me the crown of justice, which the Lord, the just Judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. (2 Tim 4:7)
What a wonderful thing to be able to say at the end of one’s life. Isn’t that what we all desire most, when all is said and done—to look back and say, “I fought hard for the right things, I did what God put me on this earth to do, and now I gladly await a heavenly reward”?
Surely that thought alone is worth meditating on regularly, that we might live today with that aim in mind. But there’s another lesson I want to draw from Paul’s declaration that he has “kept the faith,” particularly in the context of his exhortation that Timothy fulfill his own ministry among people resistant to solid, biblical truth. To wit: it’s not just that Paul has continued to have faith; he has kept the faith.
Elsewhere, writing to the church over which Timothy became pastor, Paul urged the congregation to “preserve” the unity whereby they had been called to “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father” (Eph 4:3–6).
Likewise, Jude felt compelled to urge his correspondents “to contend for the faith once and for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men have snuck in… ungodly ones, who change the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord” (Jude 3–4).
Now, as much as ever, there are a host of false teachers who claim a Christian mantle while denying God’s clear instructions, robbing their hearers of the opportunity to repent and be set free from their sins and thereby leading many to hell. So it is imperative, much as we might wish to avoid conflict or causing offense, that Christians not merely invite people to any old faith in God such as they like. We must “fight the good fight,” contending against the forces of deception so as to “keep”—that is, to preserve intact—“the faith” as Jesus taught it.
Compromise seems easier in the short term, but it leads only to regret. How many people will we not see in heaven because we lacked the courage of conviction to call them to repent? How many times have we been duped into believing lies and living far below the high calling to which God has called us as His sons and daughters and as His ambassadors? Truly, all creation is longing for us to stand and bear witness to the true and living God (Rom 8:19).
Father, forgive us for making peace with the world and standing by while people perish. Purge us of the enemy’s lies, renew our minds by your Holy Spirit, and fill us with the fire of your love for people, so that we would be compelled by love to call them to the one faith that saves—the faith of Jesus, our King forever and ever. Amen.
