Focus

Stop and thank God for being present with you today. Ask for God’s guidance as you hear God’s voice through scripture and the writer.

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Read

1 Thessalonians 4:1-12 (NRSV)

Finally, brothers and sisters, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that, as you learned from us how you ought to live and to please God (as, in fact, you are doing), you should do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; that each one of you know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one wrong or exploit a brother or sister in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we have already told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. Therefore whoever rejects this rejects not human authority but God, who also gives his Holy Spirit to you.

Now concerning love of the brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anyone write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another; and indeed you do love all the brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, beloved, to do so more and more, to aspire to live quietly, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we directed you, so that you may behave properly toward outsiders and be dependent on no one.

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Reflect

Love one another! Paul wrote about morality in today’s scripture, but he also enjoined his readers to “love one another,” to “live quietly,” and to “mind your own affairs.” If Paul spent much time on social media these days, how much of that love and restrained behavior would he find in our posts? Maybe he would be saddened by what he saw; and, yes, he might even have to “unfollow” or “unfriend” some folks!

I like to think that all this loving, behaving, and minding one’s own business can be interpreted in relation to the concept of grace—we have to give as good as we get. If we love one another, we will surely show grace to one another. In today’s world, we need to show that grace, whether we interact online or face to face. Paul might not have had the internet, but he surely saw a lot of human nature—and gave a lot of good advice.

I recently read the story of Nguyen Van Thuan, who spent 13 years in prison in Vietnam, nine of those years in solitary confinement. I printed out these words of his (as quoted by Tim Muldoon in the “Three Minute Retreat”) and posted them on my desk: “…most things we think we need—and certainly everything we think we want—comes from glancing nervously around at others. Aside from food and water, the one needful thing is the grace of God, which is poured out to us in exactly the same amount as we allow God to pour it out to others through ourselves.”

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Pray

Dear Lord, keep us mindful that, as the blessed recipients of your abundant grace, we have a holy obligation to pay it forward. Help us to remember what you have taught us about loving one another, so that our every action will be an obvious reflection of that love—visible to all we meet. Amen.

Go with God.