July 26- 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3

THE VERSE

We give thanks to God always for all of you, 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.
~1 Thessalonians 1:2-3

THE THOUGHT

Paul's famous expression "faith, hope, and love" from 1 Corinthians 13 is well-known and well-loved. But faith, hope, and love were more than just an expression to Paul; they were the essence of the Christian life, and they crop up over and over again in his letters. Here, in his first letter to the church at Thessalonica, we gain valuable insight into what "faith, hope, and love" are all about and what they look like in the life of a believer. We will spend the next three days looking at each of those three virtues and what is said about them here.

First, faith. In our age of easy believism, it sometimes seems that we have reduced faith to the barest intellectual assent to a list of facts about Jesus. But biblical faith is deeper and richer than that. God wants to remind us here that faith works. A faith that does not prove itself in tangible ways is no faith at all. I can say I trust this chair to hold me, but if I refuse to sit in it, I don't really trust it. In the same way, if we claim to have faith in Christ, but live a lifestyle opposed to him, our statement of faith is a sham.

We are saved, praise God, by grace through faith, no works involved. Our standing with God is based solely on grace, on the merits of Christ, ours through faith. But we dare not misunderstand the nature of saving faith. We are saved by faith alone, but faith is never alone; it is a living, trusting, grasp on Christ that expresses itself in tangible deeds. Faith works.


THE PRAYER

Lord, help me to have a living, breathing faith in You. Forgive me for my times of dead faith, when I claim to trust You but deny You by my actions. Make my deeds correspond more to the gospel I love, so that You might be honored by my working faith.

EXTENDED READING

1 Thessalonians 1:1-6
James 2:14-26


THE QUOTE

"The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." ~Brennan Manning



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