The Need For Fathers

1 Cor. 4:15  "For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel."  We need our earthly fathers, our Heavenly Father, and spiritual fathers in our lives.  Our earthly father has a role to play in training and raising his children in the admonition of the Lord.  But not all earthly fathers do this, as they may be absent, or disinterested in spiritual things.  Timothy seems to have had a father like this.  All we know about his father was that he was Greek, Acts 16:1.  It was from Timothy's mother Eunice, and his grandmother Lois, that Timothy came to know Christ and the Scriptures.  Later Paul took him as his own son in the Lord, and instructed him and encouraged him in his gifts.  Spiritual fathers are those people in our lives who have cared for us, prayed for us, and raised us up in our place in the body.  Without them, we would never have made it to the place we are today.  They help us to develop our relationship with our Heavenly Father.  We grow in our relationship with our Heavenly Father, and as we grow, we in turn are to pass on to others what we have learned.  2 Tim. 2:2 says that we are to commit to faithful men the things that we have heard.  There will be a succession of disipleship that follows our lives, as we disciple another, and they disciple another, and so on.  Paul was there to help Timothy through many things such as:  fear, perseverance, false doctrines, hardship, rightly dividing the Word, humility, persecution, etc.  Timothy battled a spirit of fear in his life, and so we have the famous words, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."  Timothy would not have become the man he was without Paul.  Timothy needed Paul, and Paul needed to have a Timothy.  Paul had many men that he discipled, and in turn, Timothy discipled others also.  If there is anything written on my gravestone, I would like to have the words, "A Spiritual Father" written there.  May my life cause others to come fully into their place in the body of Christ.