II Timothy 1:6-7
“For this reason, I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.”
Guidance of God’s Spirit
Paul says that God’s Spirit is not about human fear. Later in II Timothy, he corrects Timothy for being ashamed of the gospel message and of Paul. The younger man seems to have been in some danger of letting down and needed to be admonished to be strong and to endure hardship. All of this is part of the fear to which Timothy was apparently inclined.
As in I Corinthians 2:12-16, God’s Spirit is linked with mind. If we are yielding to His Spirit, then our minds will be sound; they will be disciplined and self-controlled. Our minds will be sensible, sober, balanced, and restrained, and we will have wisdom, discretion, and solid judgment. Through the guidance of God’s Spirit, our minds will operate in a way different from, and often incomprehensible to, those in the world, because we are being impelled by the essence of God’s own mind, which is the absolute epitome of sound-mindedness and the opposite of the course of this world.
The Spirit of God is also a spirit of love. We can combine this with Romans 5:5: “. . . the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” Along with that, the first element of the fruit of God’s Spirit is love (Galatians 5:22). Godly love is an action—doing the right thing toward God or another person, regardless of the personal cost involved.
The remaining attribute listed here is power. It is the Greek word dunamis, which can also be translated as “ability,” “strength,” or “mighty works.” Dunamis is the capacity for achieving or accomplishing. The Holy Spirit gives a person the capacity for God’s will and work to be done through him. But this is not a personal power.
It is critical to understand that the power of God’s Spirit is under the constraint of the love and sound-mindedness of God’s Spirit. In other words, it is not simply power for the sake of power, nor is it for self-gratification or self-glorification.
