Holy

We are making our way through Paul’s first letter to the Jesus followers in Thessalonica. Today, Paul reminds us that we are supposed to be different.


1 Thessalonians 4
1 Finally, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to live in a way that pleases God, as we have taught you. You live this way already, and we encourage you to do so even more. 2 For you remember what we taught you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 3 God’s will is for you to be holy, so stay away from all sexual sin. 4 Then each of you will control his own body and live in holiness and honor - 5 not in lustful passion like the pagans who do not know God and his ways. 6 Never harm or cheat a Christian brother in this matter by violating his wife, for the Lord avenges all such sins, as we have solemnly warned you before. 7 God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives. 8 Therefore, anyone who refuses to live by these rules is not disobeying human teaching but is rejecting God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. 9 But we don’t need to write to you about the importance of loving each other, for God himself has taught you to love one another. 10 Indeed, you already show your love for all the believers throughout Macedonia. Even so, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you to love them even more. 11 Make it your goal to live a quiet life, minding your own business and working with your hands, just as we instructed you before. 12 Then people who are not Christians will respect the way you live, and you will not need to depend on others.


Holy. As Jesus followers, we are called to live holy lives. Lives that are different. Lives that are concerned more with pleasing God and helping with the needs around us than fulfilling the wants within us. Lives that are driven more by the passions of God (the Holy Spirit, check out John 14:15-17) than the passions of me. Lives that are focused more on loving others and correcting me than loving me and correcting others (reread verses 10 and 11 and check out Matthew 7:1-5). The key is making sure our pursuit of holiness doesn’t become a badge of holiness (a “holier than thou” attitude). Sometimes we begin to love ourselves for how much we think we love God and forget to love others the way we know God loved us. That is what amazes me most about Jesus right now and why I passionately follow him … he was able to live a life that “pleased” God (check out Matthew 17:1-7) and earned the “respect” of nonbelievers (check out Mark 2:13-17). He was a picture of holiness that I pray is reprinted in my life.

Troubles

We are making our way through Paul’s first letter to the Jesus followers in Thessalonica. Today, Paul brings up a troubling topic.


1 Thessalonians 3
1 Finally, when we could stand it no longer, we decided to stay alone in Athens, 2 and we sent Timothy to visit you. He is our brother and God’s co-worker in proclaiming the Good News of Christ. We sent him to strengthen you, to encourage you in your faith, 3 and to keep you from being shaken by the troubles you were going through. But you know that we are destined for such troubles. 4 Even while we were with you, we warned you that troubles would soon come - and they did, as you well know. 5 That is why, when I could bear it no longer, I sent Timothy to find out whether your faith was still strong. I was afraid that the tempter had gotten the best of you and that our work had been useless. 6 But now Timothy has just returned, bringing us good news about your faith and love. He reports that you always remember our visit with joy and that you want to see us as much as we want to see you. 7 So we have been greatly encouraged in the midst of our troubles and suffering, dear brothers and sisters, because you have remained strong in your faith. 8 It gives us new life to know that you are standing firm in the Lord. 9 How we thank God for you! Because of you we have great joy as we enter God’s presence. 10 Night and day we pray earnestly for you, asking God to let us see you again to fill the gaps in your faith. 11 May God our Father and our Lord Jesus bring us to you very soon. 12 And may the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows. 13 May he, as a result, make your hearts strong, blameless, and holy as you stand before God our Father when our Lord Jesus comes again with all his holy people. Amen.


Troubles. You need to know that as a Jesus follower you “are destined for such troubles”. Troubles that come in all shapes (spiritual, relational, physical, vocational) and sizes (annoying, challenging, life-altering); but come from one source ... the enemy of God. In verse 5, Paul calls him “the tempter”. Peter, one of Jesus’ disciples, called him “a roaring lion” (check out 1 Peter 5:8). Jesus called him a “thief” (check out John 10:10) and the “father of lies” (check out John 8:44). Ultimately, they were concerned about his ability to use troubles to disrupt your faith in God with temptation, intimidation, fear or deception. Does God really love you? Hasn’t he abandoned you? Is he really coming back? Want to know the answer ... (yes, no, yes) ... trust (check out John 14:1).

Word

We are making our way through Paul’s first letter to the Jesus followers in Thessalonica. Today, Paul shares a very important thought about an important word.


1 Thessalonians 2
13 Therefore, we never stop thanking God that when you received his message from us, you didn’t think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God - which, of course, it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe. 14 And then, dear brothers and sisters, you suffered persecution from your own countrymen. In this way, you imitated the believers in God’s churches in Judea who, because of their belief in Christ Jesus, suffered from their own people, the Jews. 15 For some of the Jews killed the prophets, and some even killed the Lord Jesus. Now they have persecuted us, too. They fail to please God and work against all humanity 16 as they try to keep us from preaching the Good News of salvation to the Gentiles. By doing this, they continue to pile up their sins. But the anger of God has caught up with them at last. 17 Dear brothers and sisters, after we were separated from you for a little while (though our hearts never left you), we tried very hard to come back because of our intense longing to see you again. 18 We wanted very much to come to you, and I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us. 19 After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what will be our proud reward and crown as we stand before our Lord Jesus when he returns? It is you! 20 Yes, you are our pride and joy.


Word. Verse 13 is really a summary statement for me for this blog (these “daily devotions”). I am so glad that you have accepted (or are accepting) the “word of God” ... the story of God ... and that you are allowing it to “work in you”. That is my prayer ... that as we journey through God’s word (God’s story) ... that day by day, word by word, it would begin to weave its way into your story and begin to transform you ... your thoughts, your attitudes, your relationships, your words, your goals, your opinions, your passions, everything. I know it is possible because I know the transformation that has taken place in my life. Thank you for allowing God’s word to work in you. Please don’t give in when distractions seem more important and please don’t give up when nothing seems to ever change. If you keep seeking God’s word, I promise you that it will bring you “hope and joy” in this life and the life to come.

Messengers

We are making our way through Paul’s first letter to the Jesus followers in Thessalonica. Today, Paul talks about talking.


1 Thessalonians 2
1 You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, that our visit to you was not a failure. 2 You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. 3 So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery. 4 For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts. 5 Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you well know. And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends just to get your money! 6 As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else. 7 As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. 8 We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too. 9 Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you. 10 You yourselves are our witnesses - and so is God - that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. 11 And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. 12 We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory.


Messengers. Yesterday, we talked about our role of being examples. Today, we take it a step further and look at our role of being messengers. Paul demonstrates some important ingredients every messenger needs to have ... boldness, purity, gentleness and passion. The one ingredient that really stood out to me ... was me. I was struck by the idea that sharing the Good News of Jesus includes me sharing my own life ... sharing my weaknesses and my fears and my uncertainties (along with demonstrating my faith and love and hope). It may seem contradictory; but it is just as important for me to be bold as it is for me to be transparent. My former education professor (Dr. Shiverdecker) used to say, “Student won’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care”. That is true for teachers ... and for messengers. The real question is ... do I care?

Example

This week, we are moving on to what most scholars believe is Paul’s second letter, chronologically ... 1 Thessalonians. We know that Paul spent at least three weeks in Thessalonica (check out Acts 17:1-10); but most scholars believe he was there longer. Today, Paul writes about an excellent example.


1 Thessalonians 1
1 This letter is from Paul, Silas, and Timothy. We are writing to the church in Thessalonica, to you who belong to God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. May God give you grace and peace. 2 We always thank God for all of you and pray for you constantly. 3 As we pray to our God and Father about you, we think of your faithful work, your loving deeds, and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 We know, dear brothers and sisters, that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own people. 5 For when we brought you the Good News, it was not only with words but also with power, for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true. And you know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you. 6 So you received the message with joy from the Holy Spirit in spite of the severe suffering it brought you. In this way, you imitated both us and the Lord. 7 As a result, you have become an example to all the believers in Greece - throughout both Macedonia and Achaia. 8 And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Macedonia and Achaia, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it, 9 for they keep talking about the wonderful welcome you gave us and how you turned away from idols to serve the living and true God. 10 And they speak of how you are looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven - Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment.


Example. I was drawn to the fact that these new Jesus followers had become an example ... so quickly. I was challenged to evaluate my own life and determine if I am an example or at least becoming an example. And if so, what kind of example am I? What kind of example should I be? In verse 3, Paul commended the Thessalonians on their faith, love and hope. Not a bad place to start. Do people see my faith at work in what I say and what I do? Do people see my love for God in the way that I interact with others? Do people see my hope in Jesus’ return in the way that I handle the hardships of this world? My personal prayer (which I hope to become more “constant”) is that I would become an example ... an example that reflects the faith, love and hope found in the story of God. My pastoral prayer (for those of you on this Journey with me) is that you too would become an example (which I plan on making more “constant”).