Power love and an ordered mind

<p>POWER LOVE AND AN ORDERED MIND 2 Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear (deilia - timidity), but the spirit of power and of love and of an ordered mind. That word deilia that means timidity occurs only once in the whole bible – it is not phobeo the word used for fear in very other Scripture in the New Testament.</p> <p>Paul writes an emotional letter to his dear friend and ‘son in The Lord’ Timothy. He says to him ‘I remember you in my prayers night and day, greatly desiring to see you, being mindful of your tears. Timothy had been going through quite a bit of suffering in the Church at Ephesus and was feeling rejected and intimidated and a little bullied perhaps because of the rejection of the Gospel message that he had embraced through Paul and delivered to the Ephesian church. Paul commiserates with him and tells him of his own suffering as he was suffering in jail for the same reason – the rejection of his message of the Gospel of grace. So he encourages Timothy that they can share together in the experience of this kind of suffering. They can turn the threats and mistreatment from others into a triumph of God’s Spirit of power and love working within. He affirms Timothy that he has a disciplined and ordered mind and that he can lay hold of the faith of how God was working through him with His power and His love and with Timothy’s ordered mind to reorder the confusion and disorder that was going on about him. Timothy was burdened but he was not giving up. Just because people need encouragement from someone does not mean that they are failing. It can mean that they are being encouraged to continue despite the pressure – to dig deep and tap into that spirit of power and love, with an ordered mind.</p> <p>What is that power? - It is the power of God’s perfect love that casts out all fear. Ephesians 3:16 That he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in