Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Today Our Daily Bread 1 Thess 2

1 Thessalonians 2: 1 - 20
1 You yourselves know, dear brothers and sisters, F4 that our visit to you was not a failure. 2 You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, even though we were surrounded by many who opposed us. 3 So you can see that we were not preaching with any deceit or impure purposes or trickery. 4 For we speak as messengers who have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He is the one who examines the motives of our hearts. 5 Never once did we try to win you with flattery, as you very well know. And God is our witness that we were not just pretending to be your friends so you would give us money! 6 As for praise, we have never asked for it from you or anyone else.
7 As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but we were as gentle among you as a mother F5 feeding and caring for her own children. 8 We loved you so much that we gave you not only God's Good News but our own lives, too. 9 Don't you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that our expenses would not be a burden to anyone there as we preached God's Good News among you. 10 You yourselves are our witnesses – and so is God – that we were pure and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. 11 And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. 12 We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you into his Kingdom to share his glory.
13 And we will never stop thanking God that when we preached his message to you, you didn't think of the words we spoke as being just our own. You accepted what we said as the very word of God – which, of course, it was. And this word continues to work in you who believe. 14 And then, dear brothers and sisters, you suffered persecution from your own countrymen. In this way, you imitated the believers in God's churches in Judea who, because of their belief in Christ Jesus, suffered from their own people, the Jews. 15 For some of the Jews had killed their own prophets, and some even killed the Lord Jesus. Now they have persecuted us and driven us out. They displease God and oppose everyone 16 by trying to keep us from preaching the Good News to the Gentiles, for fear some might be saved. By doing this, they continue to pile up their sins. But the anger of God has caught up with them at last.
17 Dear brothers and sisters, after we were separated from you for a little while (though our hearts never left you), we tried very hard to come back because of our intense longing to see you again. 18 We wanted very much to come, and I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us. 19 After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what is our proud reward and crown? It is you! Yes, you will bring us much joy as we stand together before our Lord Jesus when he comes back again. 20 For you are our pride and joy.
FOOTNOTES:F4: Greek brothers; also in 2:9, 14, 17. F5: Some manuscripts read we were as infants among you; we were as a mother.
Holy Bible, New Living Translation,copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.,Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved
~Lena's Comments~
Motivation goes a long way with people. Paul is telling his motivation. #1 to please God, #2 His love for people. Both of these follow the two greatest commands, not 2 greatest suggestions as we sometimes regard them, but 2 greatest commands. Love God, Love people. These actions are actions only one who has the true heart of God inside and alive within them could be or do. God’s heart is that of a Father ( not in comparison to men of earth and their good attempts or even their weaknesses, or possible neglect, etc.) Another descriptive attribute is that of Mother, one who’s will is to feed and make sure there is nourishment given and received to promote growth of the body. Mothers are adamant about this kind of thing, and if anyone cares, it’s truly a Mother. God designed Mother’s and Father’s hearts to be a true reflection of His heart towards human people. Yes there have been perversions, But GOD set it up in a pure undefiled way.
God so desires that we as spiritual parents to people on earth, would nurture and feed and care for and protect His offspring as pictures of who He is and what He desires in the earth. THIS is what He trusts us with. Can you imagine God leaving His kids off at your house for a period of time and He returns and asks how it went? That’s pretty much what life here is about, Stewardship. If we choose not to steward, we’ll be giving an account of it later, because He entrusted us with His most prized possessions. His Son & His people, who He wanted to present and give His Son to. Ya know whether we accept this mission or not, it has been given each of us by God and He has trusted us to do it.
Many times people have become parents whether they "planned" to or not. Even if they didn’t want to be parents, they still had a child to raise and care for and will stand before their government, society, and God for their place in that parenting. The more people are born the more need there is and will be to nourish and cherish for God. We may feel it is an overwhelming thought now, think of how many are being born daily in the earth and of how many pass on daily not having been nourished. Each birth is another opportunity to Love for and with God. WOW, our hesitation is really limited to our own healing from the perversions of life and the stewardship men have had over us. We have to break out of that mindset and Love anyway, Live for God anyway, Nurture, Father, Mother, Steward anyway. This is when God wins and we triumph over our enemies. IF we don’t or won’t , we are still living in the hurts of the past and refuse to see that the cross was good enough for us, to heal and cleanse us and bring us to a place of giving. God loves a cheerful giver (of life)
Satan is God’s enemy, he is also a father – of lies, of deceit, of enmity with God. He hates God and His image ( which is us in the earth, especially those who will be stewards on purpose) Once a person gets ahold of the insight of their own participation with God’s enemy they will rise up ready to fight against the forces that try to prevent God plan from coming to pass in the earth. They who have a glimpse of understanding, will boldly wield the sword of the spirit to posh back the forces of evil, rather than inviting them in.
Definition of satan:
adversary (one who opposes another in purpose or act), the name given to
the prince of evil spirits, the inveterate adversary of God and Christ
he incites apostasy from God and to sin
circumventing men by his wiles
the worshippers of idols are said to be under his control
by his demons he is able to take possession of men and inflict them with diseases
by God's assistance he is overcome
on Christ's return from heaven he will be bound with chains for a thousand years, but when the thousand years are finished he will walk the earth in yet greater power, but shortly after will be given over to eternal punishment
a Satan-like man
See, satan is the god of this world and the father of lies, if we do not on purpose join God’s work in the earth and obey and accept His missions and commissions we have not changed sides at all. In fact God says those who are not ( deliberately ) with me with a sense of purposeful plight, are in fact against Me. What is God’s work? GO-ing and Fathering and Mothering for God. Anything else, is just a religious work, or a flesh work.