Stir Up That Gift of God

G. Thomas Sharp • March 9, 2011

I was reading this week from II Timothy, chapters 1 and 2, and noticed that Paul informed Timothy that he was convinced that the faith in him was first in his grandmother Lois and then his mother Eunice, and then he encouraged Timothy to “stir up that gift of God” that was in him.  One translation says, “…keep blazing the gift of God.”

I think it is interesting that the word “stir” is derived from “ anazōpurein. ” This Greek word is made from three smaller words, pur (meaning fire), ana (meaning again) and zōpuron (meaning a live fire), and can be also be used for a pair of bellows used to excite live coals into a flame. So, it is that Paul is admonishing his son in the gospel to not permit the fire of Faith to go out, but to fan it into flames. Paul is, in effect, saying to Timothy that the size and effect of your fire is up you. It is your task to excite the embers of faith into an open blaze. This can explain why some men of smaller gifts make a bigger flame. It is because they fan the coals of their faith with greater effort.

To this end, I thank you for your exceedingly faithful remembrance of this ministry. Your monthly gifts of support are super important without which our work for the Lord at CTF would be reduced to small flameless coals. But you faithfully fan these coals by your prayer and giving, and stir them as a result.  This causes them to explode into holy flames of burning truth into the hearts of the hearers of the CTF speakers. Glory be to God!!

G. Thomas Sharp

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As many of you may know, I appreciate space. Not space around me, although the older I get the more I appreciate that as well. The things in the heavens fascinate me and have for a large chunk of my life. I love working with our telescopes, allowing people to see for themselves objects that the Lord made on the 4th day of history. When I was younger I followed our Space Shuttle program, and over the years I have had the opportunity to see a couple of those shuttles around the country. Now it is great to see all the renewed interest in exploring the heavenly creation. I know most of it is for evolutionary reasons, yet over and over again something is discovered that points to the trustworthiness of God’s Word. After all, we are to study His creation as Genesis 1:28 states. On a recent trip to El Paso, it occurred to me that Blue Origin’s launch facility is in west Texas somewhere. After some quick searching I realized we were within an hour and half of it, and there was a rescheduled launch window during the time of our meeting. So, with some persuading of my colleagues, we arose early one morning to make the launch. We made it with just minutes to spare. It was spectacular! The whole launch to just beyond the Karman Line (space boundary, 62 miles/100km) and return of the rocket and capsule is about ten minutes total. While Blue Origin is best known for its New Shepherd rocket that carries paying customers to space and back with the biggest windows ever in a capsule, this NS-29 launch was purely experimental with a payload of instruments to measure simulated lunar gravity. Even though it was not a Saturn V, Space Shuttle, Starship or Falcon launch, it was great to hear and feel a launch for the first time, from blast off to the sonic boom return. It has piqued my desire to see a bigger launch now. As I began to reflect on what I experienced, the Lord reminded me of His design. Earth, our home planet, is so well designed for life. There is literally nowhere in all the universe like it. Yet He gave us the ability to discover creation beyond it. The only reason we can launch rockets and do space exploration is because He set it up in an orderly way. Physics works because He established it to work in a predictable fashion. As much as we may never understand everything in the universe from our position here, it works on an ordered reality that is reinforced by God’s Word. This is what drove Sir Isaac Newton in his understanding of physics. He wrote, “The motions which the planets now have could not spring from any natural cause alone but were by an intelligent Agent.” Evolutionists may come up with theories about the origin of things in the heavens, but over and over again they are being shown through experimentation and observation to be wrong. The Lord set the order of everything in the beginning and sustains it by His Word (Hebrews 1:3). So as you look to the heavens tonight, gaze into the depths of space and observe the different facets the Lord placed up there for our eyes (Genesis 1:17). Peer through a telescope at the lesser light of the moon with marvel and anticipation of further human study in the coming years. Check out the amazing observations being made by the James Webb telescope from deep in space. All of these place a perspective of how awesome our Creator is and how much we depend on Him. Our design becomes more and more obvious with every discovery, yet in our universe we appear so minuscule and fragile. Thanks be to God that His infinite focus has, is and always will be here on us! Blessings.
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