1 Thessalonians 1:2–10
“We give thanks to God always for you all, constantly mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Such high praise from Christ’s greatest evangelist! Often Paul would make note of the church’s shortcomings in his letters to them, but here he has nothing but praise for the excellent job the Thessalonian church has been doing. This sounds similar to the praise that those with their name in the Book of Life will hear, as Christ Himself will say, “Well done my good and faithful servant.” We do not labor here on earth to hear the praises, however, if we did that, then we should be more concerned with the praise of man than from the Lord, for that is more visible to other men, and therefore more edifying, or perhaps gratifying in the moment. No, we labor for the “crown of glory” that will be given to us at the last day, but we do not labor for the crown, that simply is the reward we will get for serving the Lord. Laboring for the Lord should be done from love and gratitude, not to receive anything. For our labors, they may not be easy, but we labor for the Lord, who has given us everything. He has made the atoms that comprise your existence, the soul that sings praises to His Name, the universe to declare His glory, and your mind to have knowledge of His awesome power. The Lord is everything, without Him there would be no existence of any kind. Nothing did not come from something, and we know that the Creator God of the Universe is true. We owe all to the Lord and should give all. Most of all, as Paul says, “You owe me your very soul,” for that is the most important part of the Lord, His salvation. For we are such destitute sinners, we truly deserve the punishment that the Lord will mete out, we have broken His law time and time again, but He has remained faithful. He promised that through His Son we could have a wonderful salvation, that we could be saved from every wrongdoing and sin that we have committed. This is where we must, must remain faithful. “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.” Be strong in the Lord, beloved, and use the shield with which He has equipped you to defend yourself from the attacks of the devil. Faith is the most important of all our graces, and the most valuable. For all the other graces are contained within this one. When Christ healed the centurion’s slave, what did He say? “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” In Hebrews 11, every action mentioned is always “by faith.” Through faith comes the salvation, through faith comes a knowledge of the Lord, and a knowledge of His Holy Way. All the other graces are contained within faith. You cannot have love for the Lord without faith, you cannot have peace or joy without knowledge of the Most High, and, as I said prior, through faith comes knowledge. We cannot know the Lord nor can we act according to His way if we do not have faith and a saving knowledge of the Majesty.
“For we know, brethren beloved by God, that He has chosen you; for our Gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.”
We cannot come to salvation unless the Lord directs us. This is not Calvinistic, rather, the Spirit must endow us with a knowledge of our wickedness so that we can realize that we need a Savior. As humans, we do not know that our “hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.” The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, shines a light on our wickedness in order that we might realize how broken and far from the Lord we truly are. That is the work of the Spirit, to bring men to the knowledge of God. A Christian fully convicted of their own wrongdoing is a dangerous thing to the kingdom of darkness! For through the Christian, mostly, does the Spirit work, and a fiery Christian, who knows that they are broken and deserve the punishment of God is like a machine gun to the forces of evil. That Christian has no care for himself, rather only has a mind for the Lord and a perfect hatred for sin. He knows what has drawn him so far from the Lord, and he hates it, he desires to overcome, and he does, every aspect of the flesh and live in perfect holiness before the Lord. Beloved, let this become you! Become a firebrand for Christ, not caring what the world may think of you, rather only desiring the things of the Lord, to live in holiness and deny sin the pleasure of making you stumble. “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.” Have no mind for what worldly men may say, for they can do nothing, in the long run, but bluster and confusticate. The lies of the devil like to speak loudly in this world, but we must shout the blessings of the Lord from the housetops! We must carry the knowledge of the Lord to everyone who will hear and understand, which means wearing your faith on your sleeve, being outwardly, but not pharisaically, holy. Be strong, beloved, and praise the Lord with everything, in every aspect of your life, praise His Holy Name! He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords! He is Holy!
