HOW SHOULD WE LIVE IN THESE DAYS - 1

My recent daily devotions have focused on Paul’s second letter to Timothy. In this book we find eerie descriptions of the “last days.” Chapter 3 begins by warning of difficult times in the last days. People will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, disobedient to parent, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, implacable, slanderous, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than God. How do we face such days? Both Francis Schaeffer and Charles Colson wrote books whose titles come from this question as it was posed in Ezekiel 33:10.

If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them,

how should we then live?

In these days we must live prayerfully. God’s people must pray as we have never prayed before. It may not be too late to forestall God’s judgment. But even if it is, we must pray. Prayer is one of the hallmarks of the life of Daniel after God brought judgment upon his nation.

We need God to make changes in our own desires and actions. We need His hand in forgiving those who wrong us. We must pray against our own hard-heartedness. It is a good exercise to pray through 2 Timothy 3:1-5 asking for deliverance from each of these trends in our culture.

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