Absolute for the Truth

Many brothers and sisters are not absolute to the truth; they are affected by people, things, and personal feelings. If a man is not absolute to the truth, he will, in the course of his work, sacrifice God’s truth for man, himself, or his own desires. A basic requirement for being a servant of the Lord is to not sacrifice the truth. We can sacrifice ourselves and our desires, but we can never sacrifice the truth.

We cannot be a servant of God if we cannot preach beyond what we can practice. This is because the truth is absolute. The standard of the divine Word must not be lowered to the level of our personal attainment. We cannot tamper with the truth in any way in order to justify our own deficiencies. This is what it means to be absolute to the truth. We have to transcend ourselves, our own feelings, and our own personal interest in our speaking. (CWWN, vol. 52, “The Character of the Lord’s Worker,” pp. 151-152)

---

 

Fight the Good Fight

In 6:12b Paul goes on to say, “Lay hold on the eternal life to which you were called.” The eternal life here is the divine life, the uncreated life of God, which is eternal. Eternal denotes the nature more than the time element of the divine life. To fight the good fight of the faith in the Christian life, especially in the Christian ministry, we need to lay hold on this divine life and not trust in our human life. Hence, in 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus the eternal life is stressed again and again (1 Tim. 1:16; 6:19; 2 Tim. 1:1, 10; Titus 1:2; 3:7). To bring forth God’s dispensation concerning the church in 1 Timothy, to confront the process of the church’s decline in 2 Timothy, and to maintain good order in the church life in Titus, this life is a prerequisite. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 1862-1863)