Faith and Love-Always Good News
But now that Timothy has come to us from you and has brought the good news of your faith and love ... we have been comforted. (I Thess. 3:6-7)
I Thess. 3:1-13; Acts 17:1-9; I Jn. 3:23
What Is God Saying?
Paul's visit to Thessalonica was brief but turbulent. His message aroused the jealous anger of religious people who resented his presence and felt threatened by his teaching. Their hostility, nursed by fear, led them to gather together some rabble-rousers. With their help, they set the city in an uproar. They said, ‘These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also.’
The Gospel, a comfort to believers, can be disturbing to others. To Paul's opponents, the Good News was bad news. Nevertheless Paul, with the help of Silas and Timothy, established a church. It was filled with new Christians and their faith was immediately challenged and attacked. Paul's friends felt that his presence there was life-threatening. They sent him away in the dark of night.
He headed toward Athens and came to a city called Berea. There, the irrepressible Paul went right to the Synagogue to talk with enthusiasm to those who ‘received the Word with all eagerness.’ But the Christians at Thessalonica were always on his mind. He tried ‘again and again to see them’ (I Thess. 2:18). So, he sent Timothy, the great encourager, to people who needed great encouragement. He was ‘to establish them in the faith and to exhort them not to be moved by these afflictions.’
How Does This Apply To Us?
Today's world is torn by hatred and unrest. Wherever we look from large nations to small communities, from national politics to families living out their fears and anxieties in a charade of respectability in affluent neighborhoods ... wherever we look people are angry, suspicious, and fearful. There is a hunger and a desperate need to be encouraged by the news that faith and love still live in our troubled world. Let us bring the good news of faith and love to a world that is saturated with doubt and fear. Let us be the good news of faith and love to everyone we meet today.
Pray With Me
O Lord, You have opened up to me yet another window on beauty, love, and joy. Thank You, Lord, for the gift of friends. Their faith in You and their love for Your kingdom is a source of inspiration and hope. Their faith in me and their love for me is a source of encouragement and joy. In my gladness for what they are to me, let me not forget what I should be to them. Let my life show the confident faith of one who is redeemed and the self-abandoning love of one who has received Your saving grace in Jesus Christ. Strengthen me in that faith and send me forth in that love, for this will be to me and others the only good news that remains forever unchanged and forever unchangeable.
To the praise of the glory of Your grace, O Christ, Lord of lords, and Friend of friends. Amen.
Moving On In The Life of Prayer
Prayer should stand on a platform of faith and walk out on a path of love. Let us make a practice of repeating these words before we pray and keeping them before us as we pray, ‘All things are possible to him who believes’ (Mk. 9:23). Then as we close our time of prayer, let us repeat those other and equally important words, ‘Walk in love as Christ loved us’ (Eph. 5:3). Let us be the good news in somebody's life today.
