Sons Of Light

1 Thessalonians 5:5-11
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. He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

Last evening, a dear friend of mine called to share heartbreaking news of his wife’s decision to annul their marriage by filing for a divorce. This young man was shaken at the very core and he could not believe it and asked me a question that seemed so hard to answer. Why did God permit him to be married to her when God knew this was not going to work specially after he asked God to only permit the marriage if it was God’s will. In these troubled times when we are surrounded by brokenness and suffering, why is God reminding us to be hopeful and when will He come and take us away from this suffering?

As I spoke with my friend, God led me to remind him of the life of Joseph who was a good kid but was betrayed by his own brothers, sold as a slave, imprisoned on false charges and finally was lifted by the pharaoh and blessed those who betrayed him. Also, I reminded my friend that God saves the lost and that’s whom we are. We are the worst of the worst that God saves, transforms and uses for His glory and therefore we should not consider suffering as loss but as gain because through suffering, we gain Christ and everything that comes from Him. As Christians, our hope is in an unseen God and our reward is in future, not at the present time. Therefore we are encouraged to keep focussed on this unseen God and wait eagerly for this future gift of life in God’s presence. We do not need to seek worldly pleasure to fill our hearts, it can never fill the void, we only need Jesus. Are you troubled, are you lost, are you seeking, then know that Jesus is standing at your door waiting to come in and love and transform you for His glory. Just ask Him in!

In His Loving Service,
ServantBoy

Romans 8:24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?

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Praise In Persecution

1 Thessalonians 3:4-8
In fact, when we were with you, we kept telling you that we would be persecuted. And it turned out that way, as you well know. For this reason, when I could stand it no longer, I sent to find out about your faith. I was afraid that in some way the tempter might have tempted you and our efforts might have been useless. But Timothy has just now come to us from you and has brought good news about your faith and love. He has told us that you always have pleasant memories of us and that you long to see us, just as we also long to see you. Therefore, brothers, in all our distress and persecution we were encouraged about you because of your faith. For now we really live, since you are standing firm in the Lord.

When we take a stand for Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we go against the grain of this world and against Satan who is like a roaring lion, waiting to devour people (1 Peter 5:8). Paul reminds us of the reality of persecution but that is not the point of God’s message to us today. When Paul, Timothy and Silas were being persecuted, they were concerned that the Thessalonians would start to lose their faith and drift away from God. The fact that sincere followers of Christ were not blessed but rather were being attacked constantly would cause anyone who believed in Christ to doubt if their faith was rightly placed. Is this what you have experienced or witness in other believers? What is God’s response to this?

As you can note from Timothy’s feedback to Paul, the Thessalonians were not discouraged but instead full of faith and love. They had good memories of them and were longing to see them again. That was only possible because their faith was correctly placed. When we fully understand God’s calling in our lives and are willing to follow Jesus, we know that we will be persecuted just as He was for our faith in Him. Therefore when we suffer or see other christians suffer, we know that it is our responsibility to pray for them and our Lord and Savior is in complete control. When I think of suffering, I praise God because through suffering, our faith is strengthened and our desire for God is intensified. Lets not be shaken and tossed like the people of this world because our God is bigger than the little storms in our lives and our lives are secured by Christ’s resurrection.

In His Loving Service,
ServantBoy

1 Corinthians 16:13-14 Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

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Living By Faith Not Sight

1 Thessalonians 2:13-15a
And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is at work in you who believe. For you, brothers, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out.

What is the sound of God’s voice like? This is a question I have often been asked and wondered a lot about. Is it loud or soft, gentle or forceful, is it audible or so gentle that one wouldn’t hear unless listening intently. We try ever so hard to hear God’s voice and I’ve know many including myself who have been dejected about not hearing God’s voice audibly whereas I have met several people who hear His voice often and very clearly. What is God teaching us from today’s passage and does it help us understand how to hear His voice?

Paul commends the Thessalonians for receiving the word of God in faith and showing evidence of their conviction by their lives. The word of God is real, is true and is even printed for those of us who need to see it. The Thessalonians and the Christians of those times past had only scrolls to refer to which were not indexed or bound together like we have it today. Their faith was much greater than ours because they believed God’s word for what it was. We need visual proof in sound, theatrics and more to believe and keep the faith but they had none. God’s voice is recorded in word and we are reminded that this world will pass away but not God’s word which will be real and true for eternity. Are you able to hear God through His written word or are you sad that God missed your sensory needs? Let’s live by faith and not by sight.

In His Loving Service,
ServantBoy

Luke 21:33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

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Celebration of Faith, Love and Hope

1 Thessalonians 1:2-3
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.

One of the joys I have in serving God through this platform is how God brings people to encourage us when we serve. It can be quite daunting to go out on a limb to serve a God who is not seen, whose Son lived and was crucified 2,000 years ago and who ministers and directs us by the Holy Spirit, who again is unseen. As we step out in faith convicted by our belief in this God, He responds by ministering to us through His Holy Spirit which fills us up and directs our path moment by moment. The other aspect of his provision is bringing His own to encourage us and as I continue to walk in faith serving this great God, he has placed many in my midst, albeit that being online, who continually encourage, support, value add and pray for me. Was Paul speaking as an encourager here and was that the essence of his message to us today?

A dear christian friend and encourager shared an incident at her church where a lady attending shared a vision that she saw 2 ships, one with people having a great time but no joy inside and another with people all wounded but full of joy. The christian ship is the latter and even though we are the downcast in the eyes of society, we are the chosen in the eyes of the Living God and our encouragement is from God and each other. I thank God for each of you that are serving God the Father, His son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit together and I celebrate with the hosts of heaven your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In His Loving Service,
ServantBoy

1 Corinthians 13:13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love

 

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