TUESDAY 7th
1 Thessalonians 2:9-12
NIV (v12) – ‘For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.’
ESV (v12) – ‘For you know how, like a father with his children, we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.’
The apostle and his companions had an amazing level of concern for those who had become the members of the various Churches they had planted around the region, they wanted to impart into their lives as much as they possibly could concerning the outliving or outworking of the gospel, it wasn’t a case of get saved and work it all out for yourself, no, it was a case of we will encourage, comfort, you and urge you to continue in the way so that you will lives worthy of God, that is until you really become the people God wants all to become who have responded by faith to the gospel. He says that they had dealt with the new believers as a father dealt with his own children.
In Acts 17 they had initially spent three sabbaths reasoning with the people in Thessalonica concerning the gospel, in the previous verses here in 1 Thessalonians we read that during that time, Paul and those with him ‘worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, while we proclaimed the gospel to you’ such was their desire to preach, teach and reach the Thessalonians, such was their love for the lost, for the souls of men and women.
The phrase ‘to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel’ is an important one, and as a father (and a mother) in the natural would seek to inspire, encourage and urge a baby born into their home to grow and mature and develop in ways which would bring credit to them, ways that the child would learn and follow and thus be good examples and a good reflection of a balanced stable family unit, Paul wanted to urge the believers to walk in a manner that is a good reflection of what it really means to be an individual who has been called into the family of God, and this should be the earnest desire of each one of us today who also have been called into the Kingdom of God or the family of God, to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel. May I urge, encourage each one of us who is reading this devotion, to see how we walk as believers, that we do not walk as unbelievers walk, enjoying the fleeting pleasure of this world, but walk in ways that are worthy of the gospel, ways that give a good reflection to the world of what it really means to us to belong to the family of God, the household of faith. Paul urges the same to the Ephesian believers in Ephesians ‘I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.’ (4:1-6)