Year 5, Day 289: 1 Thessalonians 5

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Information

• Information: This is the initial phase of become a disciple of Jesus.  Before we can do anything meaningful we must begin to understand what we are doing.  We may never gain full understanding of God and His ways, but God calls us to study Him, His Son, and His ways as the foundation of being His follower.

As we open 1 Thessalonians 5 we get a taste of Paul’s reassurance.  He knows that when persecution comes that it is easy to get discouraged or confused.  He also knows that it is easy to doubt the future when we are under pressure.  So Paul tells them not to worry.  He tells them that he doesn’t even need to write to them about the future because they already know.  They don’t need to be concerned about it because they already know.  Paul is encouraging to live out of what they already know and to do it confidently.

This tells us a really good lesson.  We live out of what we know.  But to live confidently, we need to know, first!  We need to learn something before we can even try and imitate it.  But once we do know something, we should absolutely try and imitate it with confidence.  We have to know Jesus before we can live righteously.  But once we know Jesus, we should imitate His righteousness.

That’s Paul’s point about the future.  In times of persecution, live like you are confident of who will win in the end.  I know, that is easily said and much less easily done.  But that should be our frame of mind.  We know who wins in the end.  We need to live like it.

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