At the beginning of the very last letter he ever wrote, the apostle Paul, concerned for his spiritual son Timothy, told him,

I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
— 2 Timothy 1:6

We often feel we need to wait for the Lord to do something to carry out His purpose, and that may be right at times, but at least as often it may be the Lord who is actually waiting for us to do something! For He has already given each of us a gift, and now He wants us to fan that gift into a flame. He will not do that for us, but rather, expects that we will exercise ourselves in such a way that the flame will burn so brightly within us, and even upon us.

In verse 6, Paul wrote to Timothy that there was a gift in “you,” that is, in Timothy, through the laying on of Paul’s hands; this refers to the particular gift Timothy had for his service to the Lord. But Paul went on to say in verse 7,

For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of a sober mind.
— 2 Timothy 1:7

In contrast to Timothy’s particular gift, this refers to something the Lord had given to each of “us,” that is, to every believer in Christ. Namely, He has regenerated our human spirit with His Holy Spirit so that it is now a spirit of “power and of love and of a sober mind.” And the “For” at the start of verse 7 shows what Paul is really saying here: that the way for us to fan our particular gift into a flame, as seen in verse 6, is by exercising our regenerated human spirit, as seen in verse 7, to stir ourselves up to serve the Lord.

Of course, this has much to do with our prayer life before the Lord, as we shall see in the next Note in this series.

May the Lord grant all of His children such an exercise before Him, to “fan into flame” our gift in these days so that we may serve Him as we should!

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—  13 December 2025 —