Old Sandals

I Thessalonians 5:13
Esteem them very highly in love for their work’s sake.

If we are to love the Lord with all our mind, meditating on his word, and if we are also to esteem others around us, where is there room for self-pity?

I Thessalonians 4:14
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.

Our believing doesn’t make it true; our believing the truth leads us into the abundant life God desires us to have and to share.

1 Thessalonians 3:8-10
For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord.  For what thanks can we render to God for you, for all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before our God, night and day praying exceedingly that we may see your face and perfect what is lacking in your faith?

Charles Gabriel, who wrote quite a few hymns in the late 19th – early 20th century, wrote of Christ that “He had no tears for his own grief, but sweat drops of blood for mine.”

This same intense, self-sacrificial love and concern for others is just what comes through in Paul’s words to the believers in Thessalonica.  This, of course, was the Spirit of Christ in Paul.

We who believe have been given the same Spirit.  Lord, have mercy.

I Thessalonians 2:10-12
We exhorted, and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father does his own children, that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

We would do well to pray this verse just prior to hearing the sermon on Sunday mornings.

Grant, dear God, that the word preached today may exhort us, may comfort us, may charge us to walk worthy of You, for you have called us out of sin and darkness into your own kingdom and glory.

1 Thessalonians 1:9-10
You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

“If God is unconditional grace, how do we understand ‘the wrath to come’?  I haven’t come up yet with an answer that fully satisfies me, though I am utterly convinced that in Jesus Christ the Father loves us absolutely and unconditionally.”  This from an Orthodox priest in a recent online discussion.

With so much of what I read in theology these days, I both agree and disagree.

Colossians 4:2
Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving.

We are not commanded here to participate in some vain exercise.  Yet we cannot presume that our feeble prayers have a magic power to change the mind of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will.

Don’t go there.  The sacred scriptures teach us that God is sovereign. But they also command us to pray, and to pray earnestly.  God alone knows how it all works together.

Colossians 3:10-11
…the new man…is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

This “new” man (this changed man who is still being changed by the knowledge of Christ, a knowledge of the heart, a knowledge which recognizes and responds to the truth that Jesus of Nazareth is in fact the Christ of God, and that those who hope in His salvation do not regard their ethnicity or their station in life as superior or inferior to anyone else’s) knows in his heart it is all about Christ.

Colossians 2:8
Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men,…and not according to Christ.

Christ alone is the “I am”.  None of us can say that.  Yet we were created to be by grace what He is by nature.  We have no life of our own.  Even our earthly life is a gift.  God has so much more in mind for us than we can imagine.  He is the unimaginable One.

Colossians 1:15-18
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are off to a poor start this year.  An NBA owner is about to lose his team because of racist remarks.  The office building needs a thorough cleaning.  I have a new computer on order.  My sister is in the hospital—again.  The Subaru has new front tires…

In Him all things consist.  He is before all things.  All things consist in Him.  He is the Conclusion.  Christ, the image of the invisible God, who is himself God.  Very God of very God.  My Savior, because I need one.  My life because, in a very real sense, everything else is death.  Preeminent.  First.  Last.  Only.

Philippians 4:6-7
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God…

We might say this verse should be read backwards. If we read it that way, we would understand more clearly what Paul is trying to say.

“Pray about everything. Bring your requests, large and small, to your Heavenly Father. Pray hard over them. Then you’ll know His peace. And when you do, or as you do, there will be less and less room in your heart for anxious, troubling thoughts.”