THURSDAY 26th
1 Thessalonians 1:2-3
NIV (vv2-3) – ‘We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers. We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.’
ESV (vv2-3) – ‘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 labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.’
We return to the same verses as yesterday, and I want to pick up on what Paul is saying here concerning the believers in Thessalonica, remember they are a body of believers who have been added to the Church following Paul’s missionary visit to them a few years earlier. He says ‘We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers’.
Prayer is an important part of the life of the Church, on the morning of the day when I was preparing this devotion, I had a text message from one of our Church family quoting the words of the hymn, ‘Prayer is the Christian’s vital breath . . .’ and it is, and it is also the Church’s vital breath, the early Church made prayer an important part of their regular activity as we read in Acts 2:42 ‘And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers’, Paul himself often mentions how he prayed for those in the Churches, prayer is important to us as a fellowship, and features in our Church activity, and so it must, the challenge is are we willing to get involved, to be willing to be together, to be devoted as the early Church was, found in the place of unity for corporate prayer and thanksgiving. In our text Paul says that ‘we thank God and continually mention you in our prayers’, I think the ‘we’ here means that the three mentioned in verse one, Paul, Timothy and Silas prayed together for the Thessalonian Church, and I would assume for other Churches as well, may we take our lead from them and come together to pray for each other, for the local Church and for others as well, not only for any particular needs that may be expressed, but that the blessing of God might be upon all that we do for the extension of his Kingdom.