Poured Out

In the Bible, Paul wrote a book to a young man named Timothy.

Timothy was becoming a leader in the Christian movement. Paul's letter, which we know as the books of 1st and 2nd Timothy, instructs Timothy in how to treat people, how to pray for people and how to be a great leader.

Toward the end of his second book, 2 Timothy 4:6, Paul says something to Timothy that may not make sense to us when we first read it...

"For I am already being poured as a drink offering..."

When I first came across this statement I began to study exactly what Paul was saying. What I discovered was a beautiful picture of a servant of God, and a pretty practical example of what it takes to live our lives for Christ.

The idea of a drink offering goes way back to ancient biblical times when a sacrifice would be made to God in the form of a "Drink Offering".

These Drink Offerings would involve pouring the contents of a vessel out completely as a sacrifice.

It seems to me that Paul may be saying to Timothy, "Here is the best example I can give you. I am completely being emptied out of myself. There is no more 'me' left. This is my offering to God."

John the Baptist said something similar in John 3:30 when speaking of the coming Messiah, Jesus...

"He must increase, but I must decrease."

Think about holding a glass full of grape juice. You decide that you want to actually drink orange juice. What would you do?

Most likely, you would pour the grape juice out of the glass then fill it up with orange juice.

But what if you only poured half the grape juice out, then poured in orange juice until the glass was full? Would the glass then be full of orange juice? No, it would be full of orange juice mixed with grape juice. You would not have pure orange juice in the glass.

In the same way, when we decide to ask Christ to be our example and to "fill our lives", the only way this can truly happen is if we completely pour US out. We must completely remove "Us" from our glass so we can be filled with "Him".

Ephesians 1:23 teaches us that Jesus, "fills ALL in ALL..." (emphasis mine).

But how do we empty us of ourselves so we can be filled with Christ?

One of the greatest ways to empty your life of yourself is to serve! Finding ways to serve others will take the focus of your life off of you, and put it on others. The reality is that when we serve others from a godly heart, we are serving God. (Matt. 22:36-37).

Another way we can empty ourselves of us is to make God's Word our filter. Learning to always ask ourselves, "What does The Word say?" puts us in a place of learning and understanding. The more we know about God, the more wisdom and revelation we have of who we are in Him (Ephesian 1:17).

Rather than just assuming all of the traditions we live by are correct, or just taking someone's word for it, we must dig into The Word for ourselves. Doing this will bring us face-to-face with truth that will challenge any selfishness that may be in our lives.

Lastly, Rather than spending ALL of our free time pursuing things that are pleasurable to our flesh, we begin to pursue things that bring strength to our Spirit and pleasure to God. Learning to make the Kingdom of God and His righteousness our main pursuit will help us pour out the us that remains.

All the while, as we are decreasing, Christ is increasing in us, and soon we can be filled with the Power of Christ - fully and purely HIM in us!

As Ephesians 3:17 - 19 ends by saying "that you may be filled with all the fullness of God".

Pour yourself out as an offering to God and be filled up with the Spirit of God!

The Twilight Zone

Years ago, there was a popular sci-fi television show called "The Twilight Zone".

In this series, characters were put into very strange situations over which they had no control. Most usually the main character would have to deal with things that seemed to happen between the lines of reality.

Sometimes people would find they had been granted their wishes only to find out that what they had wished for brought tragedy for others, or isolation for themselves.

It really was a strange show, but there were also some cool episodes that made you think!

There have been times in my life where I have found myself in strange situations and I actually hummed "the Twilight Zone" theme song. I felt like I was smack in the middle of one of those crazy episodes!

Have you ever felt that way? Here you are, just cruising along in life, then all the sudden, strange things start happening. Before you know it, everything is upside down and nothing seems to make much sense.

You expect Rod Serling to step out and say, "You've just entered in the Twilight Zone".

These are the times where our faith becomes more important than ever. This is when we run TO God and NOT away!

You see, there are two ways to see our Twilight Zone experience.

1. We can focus on the strange, unexplained, painful, inconvenient, unusual, ridiculous, unfair things that are happening to us....or....

2. We can recognize that twilight happens just before DAYBREAK!

For the Believer, the Twilight Zone is a time of celebration! It means that LIGHT is TWI (or really close!) That the darknes, the weirdness, the craziness, the out-of-controlness is almost over! Victory is close!

It may seem like all hell is breaking loose around us - but the Power of God is about to BREAK loose and all hell will run scared!

Maybe you are experiencing a sort of Twilight Zone right now. Let me encourage you to not give up. Don't let the unexplained steal your faith, your confidence in God. Keep the FAITH and keep BELIEVING!

The LIGHT is about to break, and with it is Victory!

Psalms 30:5 encourages us, "...Weeping may endure for a night, but Joy comes in the morning."

I like the Message Bible version, "The nights of crying your eyes out give way to days of laughter."

Yeh, it might be weird right now, but hang in, keep the faith and soon the Twilight Zone will give way to the Full Light of God's Goodness and Really Amazing Blessings ZONE!