Growing from Hardships

2 Thessalonians 1:3-4 and 10-11   - We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.  Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring……….  With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may count you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.  We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul was so encouraging …he was the ultimate prayer warrior.  He praised these new converts for their ability to endure and allow the small seed of faith that God planted in their hearts to grow….for their persecution was great.  They managed to not only ‘endure’ the religious persecution of that day….but learned how to internalize their faith so love for Christ would grow…and strengthen them.  Paul says that he constantly prays for them…so that they may learn to use God’s power to find their calling…their purpose…and continue to preach and teach the gospel…and thus glorify God.

Paul knew the power that hardships have to strengthen our faith…he endured more than most. He managed through some of the roughest times to turn inward and upward to God for his strength…and the power to move forward…to remain in Christ…to love in spite of how we are treated…became as natural as the sunrise each morning. The sun’s heat increases during the day you know…the cool of this morning will disappear quickly as the sun rises.  The 62 degrees outside that gave me a wonderful night’s sleep…windows thrown open and breeze blowing sweetly…might cause me to break down and turn on the air conditioner this afternoon….heat rising to 70 degrees!

Made me start thinking about how I was growing….would God count me worthy…am I fulfilling …‘every good purpose’… are ALL my acts …’prompted by faith’…is God glorified in me?  Well…my old nature…that trickster of the devil started whispering in my ear all the bad things I had done…reminded me of what little I really do.  Jokes on him this morning…cause I know now that I do not earn my salvation…it was a gift…and that gift prompted me to quickly tell Satan to remove himself from my head. …and God started reminding me of the new task he gave me to study his word and write down each morning how I can apply it to the new vessel God is turning me into.  Satan’s reminder of my past serves to make me work harder…to read and study more…to learn how to really pray….like Paul.

God I thank you this morning for every hardship you have placed in my life. I thank you for teaching me how to endure these hardships as ways to increase my reliance on you.  Help me to be worthy of your calling on my life and keep searching for God’s purpose and will. Thank you for the great gift of salvation that you gave to me…and for all the people you sent to help me accept it. Forgive me Lord for taking so long to get serious about you…help me to set a new course that you would deem as worthy…and grow in love and faith each day. Amen.

Faith...Love...Hope...Again!

1 Thessalonians 5:5-9  -  You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.  For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.  For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul knew well the power of light…he wrote many of his best words of wisdom powered by the light of Christ’s love….as he sat in the dark ….dim…dungeons of a prison.  But this letter….probably written as he arrived in Corinth…was written in the light of day…as he sat waiting for some word that these new Christians were withstanding the persecutions that forced him to leave.  Paul reminds them of the armor they should wear to protect them…especially the breastplate and the helmet.

He tells us to put on faith and love…to protect our heart.  Not an accident I think…that a quick Google search produced an article … http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/the-power-of-faith-0  …that totally supported Paul’s statement. It seems that faith…believing in a positive way in something we can’t see…reduces stress…helps us reduce anger…and helps us not to worry.  I love it when the scientific world supports the bible! And…Paul tells us to put on a helmet…the helmet of salvation…to protect our brains …to help us become righteous….after all he already told us how important faith is to our salvation in Romans 3:22-23, “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”

Jesus himself even spoke of these three needs in Matthew 23:23…speaking to the Pharisees and Scribes…who were not tithing any mercy (love) or faith, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”  He was pretty blunt with them…he must still be pretty disappointed in us for not getting this right!

One of the most powerful scriptures I have read is found in Habakkuk 2:2-4, “ Then the LORD replied: "Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that a herald may run with it.  For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.  "See, he is puffed up; his desires are not upright-- but the righteous will live by his faith” … I believe that Paul’s great wisdom was powered by his knowledge of the scripture he must have studied as a boy….scripture that was carried in his heart and soul…scripture that Paul himself referred to in Romans 1:17, “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

Father….thank you for the gift of salvation.  Help me to dress myself today in faith and love …to put on my helmet of salvation that you paid such a high price for. Teach me Lord to walk in your ways and love and show justice and mercy to all.  Help me to search even more passionately for the wisdom in your gospel…from the first page to the last….to seek your  purpose and will for my life.  Strengthen my heart Lord…help me to place these great scriptures in my soul…so that they will rule my every action and deed. Amen.

Holiness

1 Thessalonians 4:1-4 - Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.  For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.  It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality;  that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable…

I love how Paul is so bold…he speaks to these brothers and sisters with love…giving them praise for what they are doing right….and then he warns them to continue to be strong against the sexual immorality that existed in Thessalonica.  He tells them to be sanctified….to control their own bodies so that God would be pleased with them.  He tells them to not be satisfied with just pleasing God with some things...but to seek to please him in …‘more and more’…turning everything over to the power of God.

Our world is really no different today…it is also saturated with sexually explicit material everywhere we turn.  Movies are hard to come by that don’t have some really explicit love scenes…and you only have to scroll through a few channels to find what I consider extremely explicit material. Many advertisements contain scantily clad women…or men.  The library is full of books that contain love stories….pretty graphic…would make more than a few people blush.  Oh ….and let’s not leave out all that wonderful music we listen to today…complete with videos of meagerly clothed men and women.

The key is this process of sanctification.  The power to control our human flesh in all sin is found in the process of setting ourselves apart for God.  Paul did not invent this concept…God introduced it to the Israelites when he gave them the 10 Commandments…he told Moses in Exodus 31:13, “Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, saying , Verily my sabbaths ye shall keep : for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the LORD that doth sanctify you.” Joshua reminded them as they were preparing to cross the Jordan…Joshua used these words in Joshua 3:5…when he spoke to them the night before they crossed the mighty river…  “And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.”

Paul uses the next few verses to give us some guidelines to start the process of setting ourselves apart for God’s service….being sexually pure must be important…it is at the top of his list. He also tells us to love each other….lead a quiet life…mind our own business…and work with our hands.  All these are to show others what we think is most important…how we love God and his ways more than the ways of the world. He says we must win the ‘respect’ of outsiders….so that they will be curious…want to know how we have so much strength. So they will want the strength that the Holy Spirit gives us to walk away from these worldly temptations of our flesh. So that we will long to be holy…sanctified through Christ….to do his work.

Paul makes one more point in the chapter that I think is very important…he says in verses  7-8,  “For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.  He therefore that despiseth , despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us his holy Spirit.” God’s gift…the Holy Spirit can only control what we allow it too.  That’s what Paul meant when he said….’more and more’…we need to turn everything over to God’s control…to allow his spirit to give us the strength we need to say no to the fleshy lusts of this world. God wants us to be strong…to realize the power we could have if we set ourselves apart for his service…so that he can do ‘wonders among us’…cause if we are honest…we think we just can’t be ‘Holy’…

Father…I apologize for thinking that I cannot be holy.  Forgive me this morning for living so much in the world that I don’t see the possibilities of my life if I truly set myself apart to you.  I ask you to sanctify me…to show me how to live completely in your world…with strength and power to say no to the temptations of flesh in this world.  Help me to stop and think the next time I watch TV….pick a movie….decide on a book to read…or even decide what music to listen too. Give me clear visions of how I can live a life that will earn the respect of others…full of character and love for others. Amen.

Increasing Faith

1 Thessalonians 3: 10-13 - Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you again and supply what is lacking in your faith.  Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you.  May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.  May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.  

This is just the end of the chapter…you really need to read the whole text to see how proud Paul was of these new Christians.  He was very worried that the persecution they were experiencing would weaken their faith…Paul speaks here of the power of true faith….how it strengthens us. And he adds this sweet prayer…to ask the Lord to continue to increase the love in their hearts for Christ…so their faith can also increase in power.

It doesn’t take much faith you know…Luke recorded Jesus’ very words on this subject…Luke 17:6 says, “ He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.” Jesus told them more than once that faith was important…that we just don’t strive to have enough of it…that a small portion of faith goes a long way. Matthew recorded another time when Jesus told the disciples they lacked faith in Matthew 17:20, “You don't have enough faith," Jesus told them. "I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it would move. Nothing would be impossible."

Problem is…most of us don’t stop to think about how much faith we have.  We allow the tempter…we allow Satan to trick us into thinking we have no faith…or worse yet…we allow him to convince us that God has left us….doesn’t love us because we strayed so far away…or did something so bad it can’t be fixed.  But we have to be like these early Christians….use our seed of faith that Christ planted in our hearts …the new faith in Christ he gave us…to draw us closer to his side…allow our faith to reach up and grasp God’s hand….and have the courage to ask him for more…so that we can travel through our persecution…through our trial to the other side…where the blessing is waiting for us.

Father…I know in my heart that my faith….is probably a little smaller than a molecule of something…but I thank you that you helped me to realize that I had it…for it has given me the power to move forward in the pain of my life hurts….to grasp hold of your hand instead of run farther away from you.  I thank you for Paul’s prayer ...and want to claim it for myself this morning.  Take the small seed of faith in you that you planted in me and make it … ‘increase and overflow’… so that my seed grows to the size of a mustard seed…so I can do all things through you….so my service to you will know no limits….so my dreams and visions of ways I can share your love will never have any boundaries. Amen

Seeking God

1 Thessalonians 2:2-4 -  We had previously suffered and been insulted in Philippi, as you know, but with the help of our God we dared to tell you his gospel in spite of strong opposition.  For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you.  On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts.

If Paul listed every persecution…every ill word said to his face…counted every stripe or beating he received…calculated the hours spent in prison…it blows my mind that he could make this bold statement to the Thessalonians.   It is one of the dearest traits of Paul…his ability to cling to God in spite of severe persecution…and continue on in the strength he received from God.  The phrase…with the help of God…is something Paul understood well.

He says the key to strength and perseverance is to have God’s approval.  We must seek God in everything that we do…everything that we say…we must pray to God to show us what to do for him….like David said in Psalm 50:15, “And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.”…  We must study…like Timothy tells us in 2 Timothy 2:15, “ Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.”

I am learning to study in a way that keeps the context of the bible in its original intent.  I was guilty for years of thinking about what I wanted…or what my friends wanted….and going to find a verse that fit it…that justified what I  …what we wanted to do. Believe me…that got me nowhere fast…just helped me to do the opposite of what Paul is teaching us here.  It is one of Satan’s best tricks…he deceives us into thinking that what we ‘think’ is supported by the bible.  But if we are honest…we never really ask God.  We might have lifted a prayer…ask God to bless it…but he never did…because if we had waited for his answer…he would have told us no….I need you to do this instead.

Thank you father for Paul’s strong words this morning.  Words that tell me to be ever so careful what I do and say.  Words that tell me how important it is to ask you about everything I do and say…to be very sure that what I think is also what you think I should do.  Thank you for using Paul…for giving him the strength to endure persecution that is unthinkable to me…thank you for allowing him the strength to write so much wisdom down in your holy bible…so that I too can learn to be strong…to really listen to you…to pray…to study…to learn your will for my life. Father…forgive me for the times that I have tried to justify what I wanted by twisted your words…or taking them out of the context that you intended.  Help me to search your bible for guidance in the future with a prayer of purity…to seek what you want with no preconceived notions…to pray for what each verse  means to all…not just to me. Amen.

...Faith…Love…Hope…

1 Thessalonians 1:2-5 -  We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers.  We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.  For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you,  because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake.

Three of Paul’s favorite words...faith…love…hope…he  includes them once again to describe for us how to live a more holy life.  This letter to the Thessalonians…it contains his heart…for he longs to be with them…to spend more than 3 weeks teaching them about the God they decided to follow.  And these new Christians are really under some heavy persecution…Paul’s life was so endangered that he had to flee this area…his only contact is sweet Timothy.

He tells them that they need to hold on to this new faith they have received…that the faith they manage to build in their hearts will produce great works of Christ.  He tells them to love…love others in spite of the way they are being treated…for that love will provide the fuel they need to keep laboring and teaching others about God.  He tells them to endure…like Christ endured the cross for us…for that will inspire them to hope for nothing less than the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul knew that he was not the only one chosen of God to share the gospel…he writes to these new friends…these new brothers and sisters in Christ to help them understand that we are all chosen.  We are all chosen with the power of the Holy Spirit.  He takes up residence deep in our hearts and transforms us into his great vessel…full of faith…prompted to always love with the love of Christ…and never losing hope that God will use every situation in our lives to teach us more about him.

Father…thank you for bearing the cruelty of the world for my sake.  Thank you for providing me with the love I need to see life with your hope…hope that all the pain in my life has purpose.  Continue to inspire me to love others as you did.  Help me to accept that you have chosen me to be your vessel.  Give me a new faith….faith that builds stronger every day…to seek your will for my life and learn all that I need to learn to use the power of the Holy Spirit to live a more pleasing …holy life for you. Amen.

Devotion to Prayer

Colossians 4: 2-6 -   Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.  And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.  Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should.  Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity.  Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.

Paul’s closing advice to the churches in Colossae. He tells us to devote ourselves to prayer…to be watchful…to look for doors to open to share the gospel of Christ with others.  He also gives us some great advice to keep those conversations we have with others full of grace…to ‘season them with salt’…so that we are wise in our answers to others.  He once again uses that word… ‘thankful’…he tells us to be thankful…to always thank God for whatever situation…even the chains of prison.  After all…. his time in prison opened a door for him to write beautiful letters of encouragement for us to read and learn from hundreds of years later!

How can anyone go wrong if they spend more time in prayer?  I for one struggle with this one…God has blessed me with a busy life….a full schedule of things to do each day. I have learned to be obedient in one thing…to start my day with him….to write and process the time I spent in his word…which has opened not just my eyes…but he is opening my heart to the many sins I harbored in my life.  But I still struggle to deepen my prayers…I do well to ask God to bless my writing…to petition God for a few needs of friends and family.  I sometimes ask him to help me at school…if I remember.   Paul is telling us to ‘devote’ ourselves to prayer…to really stay in an attitude of prayer all day…to consult God in everything we do…especially to ask him for opportunities to share what he has done for us.

And that sharing…that testimony…it should be ‘full of grace’…showing the loving spirit that Christ is transforming our hearts into….our words completely controlled by the spirit of love that he washed us with.  He tells us to ‘season our words with salt’...like we season our food to make it tasteful …savory …rich. 

I have to add one other verse from this chapter…it pierced my heart when I read it.  Paul says in verse 17, “ Tell Archippus: "See to it that you complete the work you have received in the Lord." It was as if Paul were talking straight to me…to encourage me to finish this task God gave me of writing through the bible.  Satan immediately brought to my memory the many things I have started in my life and never finished. And anyone who visits my home would see the quilt frame with my grandma’s sweet …time worn quilt…in the process of repair.  Or they would see the large basket of crochet projects…two baby blankets…and two scarves.  Or the craft room with two sweaters that need mending….and the pants that need hemming…I think you get the picture.  Paul just gave me the answer…so I think I can do this…with prayer….by devoting these things to God in prayer…I WILL FINISH…everything he gives me to do.  He will give me the power and the strength and the wisdom to complete every task he gives me to do.

Father…I thank you this morning for the precious gift of prayer…the answer to all that I need…my lifeline…my direct line to you.  Thank you for the reminder that when I struggle in this life…when I am overcome by the busy schedule…when the task you have given me to do seems like a mountain to tall to climb…that my prayers can show me the path to take.  I thank you for helping me to tell Satan to flee from my thoughts this morning as I wrote…that you are in control now…and you are helping me to finish this task.  Father…deepen my prayers to you…fill my heart with how to stay in an attitude of prayer throughout my day…to let the stress of life pull me closer to you…because I turn the craziness over to you to control.  Help me Lord to think of only you…every moment of the day…and look harder for the doors you are opening for me to share my testimony with others.  Fill my mouth then with your words….graceful words…seasoned just right for the person you have allowed to cross my path. Amen.