Quiet Power
Read: 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 Mind your own affairs. (v. 11) The weeks leading up to an election bring a cacophony of noisy ads and boisterous declarations. Although Paul wrote verse 11 to the church of the Thessalonians, his words are also for us today “to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and […]
Holiness and Honor
Read: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. (v. 7) In today’s text, Paul pivots from pastoral joy over the Thessalonians’ faith and love to urging a lifestyle that pleases God. This is “sanctification” (v. 3), the process of becoming more holy. Christians seek to live holy lives, not in order […]
The Joy of Answered Prayer
Read: 1 Thessalonians 3:1-13 We pray most earnestly night and day. (v. 10) The problem-plagued moon mission of NASA’s Apollo 13 gripped the world for seven anxious days in April of 1970. No moment was more anxious than the six minutes of radio silence as the capsule reentered the atmosphere. Would the three astronauts survive? Imagine […]
The Real Deal
Read: 1 Thessalonians 2:13-20 You received the word of God . . . as what it really is. (v. 13) In verse 13, Paul weaves together ideas about God’s word, his preaching, and the response of the Thessalonians. He makes the stunning claim that in receiving what they heard from his preaching, they were in fact receiving the Word […]
Near and Dear
Read: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12 We have been . . . entrusted with the gospel. (v. 4) My grandson Elias was born earlier this year. His lungs were not getting enough oxygen, so he spent two weeks in the NICU. While visiting him, we met some extraordinary volunteers. Known as “The Rocking Grandmas,” these women give their time to hold […]
Affliction and Joy
Read: 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10 You received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit. (v. 6) I was moved last winter by a request from a family without a permanent home. They wrote a letter requesting our devotional be sent to an address where they could retrieve it. The wife shared, “The […]
Upside Down
Read: Acts 17:1-9 These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also. (v. 6) How did you react the first time you understood the gospel of God’s grace in Jesus? Joy? Worship? Guilt? Fear? Rebellion? The one thing the gospel doesn’t do is leave anyone the same. The men in the mob […]
World-Changing Prayer
Read: Revelation 8:1-5 He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. (v. 3 NIV) When I’m struck by the thought of world-changing prayer, I come back again and again to these words in Revelation 8. Here’s how they begin: “When he […]
The Lamb and His Great Multitude
Read: Revelation 7:9-17 There before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. (v. 9 NIV) When I muse on what it will be like at last when we are with the Lord and his people, no passage sums […]