Not Living for Peripheral Issues

In 2 Timothy:4:6For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
See All...,7, Paul says this of his LIFE, “…I am already being offered, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.”  In reading that though there are a couple things all believers need to keep in mind.

Paul was not claiming sinlessness. In addition to his own admission that he was the “chief of sinners” (I Timothy 1:15, in which he may be referring to his persecution of the church), in Romans:7:19-23 [19] For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. [20] Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. [21] I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. [22] For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: [23] But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
See All... Paul speaks of his battle with his own flesh, which was an ongoing reality.

But what Paul is claiming is that looking back on the totality of his life, he is able to say in regards to the thrust, effort, and focus of that life, that he had no regrets.  He ‘left it all on the field’ in the greatest endeavor a human can live for, making Christ known to the broadest section of his world. Thus when Paul says, “…so that from Jerusalem, and round about even unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ” (Romans:15:19Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
See All...), he speaks of not living for peripheral issues.

—Brad Buser (Missionary for more than 20 years, planting a church among the Iteri people of Papua New Guinea, and currently Founder and teacher at Radius International).