Today's passage: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Thessalonians%201-5,%202%20Thessalonians%201-3&version=NIV
Paul knew the meaning of suffering. He has been beaten, stoned, imprisoned and run out of town. He was forced out of Thessalonica, but received positive reports from Timothy regarding the perseverance of the Thessalonians' faith and love. He didn’t want the church to think that he had deserted them or that he didn’t love them, so he wrote to them in a spirit of affirmation and encouragement. With love, he cheered them on and encouraged their perseverance in the faith and in righteous living while warning them of false teachings and the need to continue their walk on the journey of sanctification.
What a wonderful example for us to follow. Because Paul had experienced suffering and discouragement, he knew the importance of affirmation. Words of encouragement and affirmation can comfort a believer like a warm cup of cocoa on a cold stormy night. Loving and nurturing words can comfort a heart in a world that has gone cold and provide just the right amount of support to spur a believer on during a storm. God always seems to send those words at just the time when we need them most.
He can use any of us in the same way that he used Paul to love and affirm fellow believers. Ask him to open your eyes to someone in need of encouragement. Maybe you know someone who is struggling with a broken marriage, but continues to put their faith in God for guidance and healing; or maybe you have a friend who is going through the storm of an illness, yet continues to praise God faithfully; or perhaps you know of a church member who is struggling with unemployment, but continues to serve joyfully at church, trusting in our sovereign Lord. Pray that He will give you genuine heartfelt words and the courage to speak words of affirmation to them. Allow Him to use you as He used Paul to spur others on through the stormy periods of life.
Today's post submitted by Kelly Coxe
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I used be be 100 percent convinced of a pretribulation rapture until I read 2 Thess 2:1-9 Not I'm not so convinced.
ReplyDeleteNotice the rapture in verse 1. “our gathering together to Him” We aren’t to be troubled that this event has happened.
II Th 2:1-9
1 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2 we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come.
This event will not happen until first. There is a falling away and Second. the man of sin is revealed.
3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition,
4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.
5 Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things?
The antichrist is being restrained until He is taken out of the way. I always thought this was the church but v 1 says our gathering together unto Him cannot happen until the man of sin is revealed v3 thus v6 and 7 couldn’t be the church.
6 And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time.
7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way.
8 And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming.
9 The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,
All of this said to point out something we totally think is black and white might not be so black in white after all.