1 Thessalonians 2:7-16
Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, 8 so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. 9 Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you.
How hard do we work for the gospel? How hard do we serve others? Do we even know how hard our pastor, elders and teachers in our local churches work for us?
10 You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. 11 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, 12 encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.
Are we holy, righteous and blameless among our brothers and sisters in Christ? Do we encourage and comfort? Do we urge our brothers and sisters to live a life worthy of God?
13 And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God,
which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it
actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who
believe.
When our pastors preach, do we treat his words a the word of God? Do we allow God's word to work in us?
14 For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews 15 who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out.
Are we willing to suffer for the gospel?
They displease God and are hostile to everyone 16 in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.
I know I want God's wrath to come upon my enemies now and not later. But our God wants all to come to him so he waits. However he will not wait for ever and when he comes I feel sorry for those who are not ready. 2 Peter 3:8-10
Not many answers today. I just passed along the questions that came to my mind as I read the word. You need to privately answer those between you and God.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen.
Through the love of Jesus, that can only be imparted by faith in His work through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are enabled to give to others and live in a way that our actions speak and not our words. If we use love (the love that Jesus has for us, not romantic love or 'love' as it is portrayed in media; AGAPE love) to guide our actions, our work doesn't become hard; it is joy. It is the outpouring of a vessel overflowing with agape love toward others in order to give back to our Savior as worship in action.
ReplyDeleteThe hard work is making sure we pour ourselves out daily at the feet of our Savior in order to make room to be filled by His Spirit.
Blessings to you, brother :)
Through the love of our Savior Jesus, by belief in His work on the cross, we can do all things.
ReplyDeleteAgape love, not romantic love, can only be given by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are too depraved to do anything to that magnitude on our own. But by emptying ourselves out at the feet of Jesus minute by minute, day by day, and allowing Him to fill us with His love, His guidance, and His will, we can accomplish this.
It isn't work. It isn't suffering. It's worship in action. It's where true joy and peace settles in. But it takes submissiveness on our part to accomplish.