2 Timothy 2:8
8 Remember [mnemoneuo] that Jesus [Iesous] Christ [Christos] of [ek] the seed [sperma] of David [Dabid] was raised [egeiro] from [ek] the dead [nekros] according to [kata] my [mou] gospel: [euaggelion] KJV-Interlinear
8 Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel, NASB
As a believer in Christ, and especially as a believer who is proactively advancing in your spiritual life, you therefore have a target placed on your soul.
The world will hate you. The people around you will ostracize you or entice you. Life will be difficult by default, if only because of your spiritual association with Christianity.
There are four great adversaries which you will face in your life.
The first is from your own thoughts. With life being difficult, simply because this is the devils world, you may have expectations that you will be blessed and thus be able to slide by in life. Not so.
Jeremiah was possibly one of the more faithful believers of his own day, and yet he was more ridiculed and hated by nearly everyone, ending in his murder.
Just by being a positive believer, does not mean that you will have notoriety like Solomon or be wealthy like Job. Most believers in this world are average people of whom the world knows nothing. Prestige and prosperity and wealth and celebrityship in this world does not automatically accompany Christianity.
So your own thoughts and dedication to God and Christ and especially your daily commitment to study, and even your faith, will be severely tested, possibly right up to the last moment of your life.
The second adversary comes from the attitudes of other people. People are one of the biggest sources of problems. People malign, gossip, cheat, lie, disrespect, stab you in the back, and so forth. You cannot live anywhere on this planet without being affected by people in some form. Tolerance will be one of the biggest hurdles you will have to jump over, probably many, many times during our life. Not to mention patience and trust, which will be challenged often. But also there are the enticements of the social life, which too, are traps that attempt to distract you away from your spiritual responsibilities.
The third source of trouble comes from bureaucracies. This is a non-entity, entity, wherein people hide behind reams of rules and policy and make your life miserable just for being alive. Government is one of the biggest sources of bureaucracy that seems to shut down life wherever possible. Most everyone likes to believe that they live in freedom, but in reality, freedom even in a free society, is bound with the ball and chain of bureaucracy.
The last source of difficulty you will encounter is from nature itself. Whether storms or genetic defects, mother nature and accidents seem to be aligned against life randomly and in general. From floods, to earthquakes, to tornadoes to hurricanes, and other forms of a violent nature, to accidents of birth ending in defects, to accidents that leave one handicapped, all of these things round out a complete list of enemies that can serve to remind humanity that you are not in control of your life in this world.
And so the tests of life are many, and the strength of faith is limited to the content of your soul.
Whatever your spiritual status, Paul reminds us all here, that it all begins with Christ.
From Adam to the birth of Christ, the prophecy was stated and continued through well over sixty generations and yet Jesus was still born as prophesied.
Throughout His life He was challenged by both man and Satan, and even in his final moments of life, physical life, He was challenged intensely, and yet He paid the price for sin and death, then He died a physical death, but then He was resurrected, and therein lays the basis and promise for Christianity.
This life is temporary at best. You do not know anyone who has lived forever because every generation has passed away back into the dust of the earth. And yet we have Christ to look to, as the pattern and promise for our own resurrection and restoration to life, this time being an eternal life. One that will come complete and without all of the earthly baggage that harasses our current life.
The gospel that Paul teaches is not his own, but that of Christ. Paul merely believes and subscribes to it because it is the truth, and therefore claims it as his, just as you should, if you are dedicated to your Christian values.
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