“Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed to Thessalonica. . .” (II Timothy 4:10a).

Forsaken (Def): (Gr): Egkataleipo from En Kataleipo: To leave behind in some place, desert

It is particularly painful when a longtime companion, ministry partner, friend, cohort or associate decides to abandon you, or your situation when you or the situation do not serve their best interests. Such was the case with Demas, long-time partner to the Apostle in their ministry together throughout the known world.

It is common among us to have an agenda, the cause to which we commit ourselves and to which we maintain fidelity and loyalty. Agendas come in all aspects of living. The agenda Demas had was to the maintenance of a good life, to be secure and to find safety and independence in this present world. For Demas to continue to be associated with the Apostle in Rome, in prison and under sentence of death by Caesar, was not a good situation for Demas’s well being. So, he abandoned Paul for Thessolonica.

It must have been with a heavy heart the Apostle penned that infamous line, “Demas has forsaken me” when he wrote those words to his son in the faith, Timothy. In other Epistles, Demas was well spoken of, such as “Luke, the beloved physician, and Demas greet thee” written in happier times to the Church at Colossae. Then too, to Philemon when he wrote his greetings, “There salute Epaphras, my fellowprisoner in Christ Jesus, Marcus, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my fellowlaborers” (Philemon 1:23-24). From fellowlaborer to being forsaken, is a journey of which one does not pray to follow.

The forsaking by Demas was not the first time the Apostle experienced such. He wrote to Timothy in his second Epistle at the time of his trial, “At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me, I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge” (II Timothy 4:16). It seems that more than Demas had their agendas for self-preservation.

My friend, has this happened to you? Have you been forsaken? A spouse, a friend, a family member, a brother, a sister in the Lord, the family of God? Have you become toxic to them with your pursuit of things not in their best interest, or agenda?

Take heart, my beloved, for as Paul continued in his Epistle to Timothy: “Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear, and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion” (II Timothy 4:17).

Indeed, it is even as our Lord has promised, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5b).

The writer to the Hebrews goes further to exhort us with the words, “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching” (Hebrews 10:25).

Is this a season of trial, testing, persecution, abandonment? Take heart the Lord is near. As the Apostle expressed it well in his Epistle to the Corinthians:

“We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed. Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the Life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body” (II Corinthians 4:8-10).

Let Demas and others do what they deem best for themselves, for their interests, for their agendas. Just know we are not our own, we belong to another, even to Him who purchased us with His own blood and redeemed us and called us with a holy calling. His we are and of Him we shall ever be, never to be forsaken for as long as life endures, then on to eternity, the age to come, and all the glory to follow.

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