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1 Thessalonians Reading | Week 2 | Day 4
Prayer
Take a moment to be silent and still. In order to be fully present in body and mind, take a deep breath in and let it out slowly. Do this three times. Ask God to give you His wisdom today.
Bible Reading: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
Read these verses three times slowly.
As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.
Reflection & Questions
Paul begins a new section of his letter in our reading today, and he begins to give the Thessalonians instructions on how to live. He reminds them that they are to “live in order to please God.” How often we forget who we are living for! We live to please our loved ones, our boss, or ourselves. Not that those are necessarily bad ways to live necessarily, but who comes first? Our lives should be marked by the fact that we are first living to please God.
Paul encourages his readers that they are doing well at living to please God, but he challenges them, “do this more and more.” We aren’t to become lackadaisical in our following of Jesus. There are always ways to change, to adjust, to work on. We should be encouraged by the ways we have changed, but not rest on that, but continue to pursue living for God “more and more.”
Paul grounds this in some very practical ways. Tomorrow, we will see how he applies this to work, but in today’s verses he applies it to sex. Why is this important? Because when we are immoral in this way we act like those who “don’t know God” and we “wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister.” Lust reduces people made in the image of God, as objects for our self-gratification. Paul tells the Thessalonians – don’t treat people that way. They are brothers and sisters and you know the God who created them. We are to please God by treating them as brothers and sisters.
- Who are you living to please? How do you know?
- Pray and ask God to show you a way you need to change to live to please Him more.
Prayer
Talk to God in response to today’s reading.
Worship Song
You might use this song today to worship Jesus today:
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Questions?
Ed Applegate
