May 14, 2017
Scripture:
Hymn 257 - Our times are in Thine hand
Prayer
Proverbs 20:24 encourages us to look to the Lord to lead us in the our path, or our steps, here on earth. You may be thinking, “I’m young, do I have to worry about that?” Well, you do want the Lord to lead your parents, and you will get blessed as you follow their directions. We know that the Lord loves us, so we can trust what He leads us to do.
Joshua 3:4. Every day is a new day, and one that we haven’t gone through before. If we were to help baby Judah learn to walk, we wouldn’t start by trying to get him to run. Instead, we’d go slowly and gently, and God is like that with us. He knows everything, so we can trust His guiding.
We may not always like where God leads us, though. For example, Joseph’s brothers sold him into Egypt, where he worked as a slave for Potipher, but was then thrown into jail, before working for Pharoah. At the end, though, he was able to say to his brothers, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.” It may not be easy, but God will lead us according to His will.
In the “Game of Life” you go around the board as you role the dice, and there are decisions and chances at every turn. The Lord wants to lead us in the real decisions and chances of our lives. He is eternal, and so knows the beginning from the end, and wants to give us light as we go along.
Mark 6:45-51. The Lord sent the disciples across the lake, but a big wind came up, and they had a hard time rowing their boat. Jesus came to them, got into the boat, and the wind stopped. The Lord will direct our paths, but at times that path may be difficult. He wants us to trust Him through the difficulties, though. He is with us in them! Gideon learned to trust when the Lord wanted him to take only 300 men into battle against the Midianites. The situation looked impossible, but he trusted the Lord to be their strength, and to win the victory. And He did!
Psalm 37: 5, 23. We need to commit our plans to the Lord, and trust Him, so that He can bring His plans to pass. If we try to honour him, He will lead us. If we don’t trust Him, though, we will get off track, like the prodigal son. He took a detour from the right path. If we follow the Lord, we can save ourselves some pain. We need to learn to want to be led by the Lord.
If we do this, we will be able to look back on our lives and see how the Lord led us. May we try to honour Him, and go where He sends us.
2 Thessalonians 1
1 Thessalonians was an early epistle, and 2.Thessalonians wasn’t written too long afterwards. The starting verses of both epistles aren’t very different.
Paul, Silas, and Timothy were concerned for the assembly Paul had started. Paul reminded them that they were in God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. They were brought together in grace and peace. This is a big contrast form Judaism. God gave grace, and they received it through faith resulting in wonderful peace. “By grace are ye saved through faith”.
According to verse three, their faith and love had been advancing and growing. Faith can be exhibited in different quantities. Faith must be exercised, and put in commitment. We need to be taking stalk of ourselves. The Thessalonians faith was growing, but for some of us it could be wavering. So, how do we grow in faith? When you feed a young child he grows. That’s what we need to do with our faith. It is easy to allow things to creep into our life that take the place of our time with the Lord. We must be careful.
Charity is love. We have grace, peace, faith, and love all here at the beginning of the chapter. Hope isn’t here. Paul usually has the three characteristics together. Hope was associated with the fruit. If you go into some family’s houses you’ll see marks on the wall measuring the height of the children. We need to do that spiritually. There are things we need to be occupied with the things that will help us grow. There are other things we should avoid. We want to be prepared for service, and for the Lord’s use.
Paul was bringing out some positive aspects of the Thessalonians, but in chapter 2 we’ll see they’re still dealing with problems. But because of their positive aspects they were receiving persecution. Some of them were wondering if they had missed the rapture. You can read about how others were persecuted, how they endured, and how they went to their deaths singing. May God give us to endure. No doubt Paul had the right to talk about persecution. He never told the ones he brought to God that they would have an easy path. It was no easier for the Lord when He was here. It requires patience, faith, and endurance.
In verse 5 we see it is God’s righteous purpose for us to go through suffering to be counted worthy for the kingdom of God. The question of “why suffering?” is hard to answer, but this verse shows it’s God’s way. If it is rightly accepted it can bring us closer to the Lord.
Hymn 234 Saviour, lead me; lest I stray
Prayer