I Thessalonians 1:3 “And we pray to our God and Father about you, we think of your faithful work, you loving deeds, and the enduring hope you have because of our Lord Jesus Christ.
As Paul, Silas, and Timothy write to the thessalonica church they are expressing their thoughts that have come through prayer. They name their thoughts around faith, love, and hope. We see these three adjectives throughout Paul’s writings and are reminded again of this three pronged quality that is present in the life of a follower of Jesus. The tone of this verse is that the thessalonica church has these incredible qualities when it comes to their discipleship but none of them are on their own it is only through Jesus that they practice faithful work, loving deeds, and enduring hope. It is through Jesus that they are able to live this lifestyle of faith, hope, and love.
This is the picture of what we should strive for in implementing God’s vision and purpose for our lives. God’s call upon my life is to be lived out with faithful work, loving deeds, and enduring hope. True discipleship brings its trials, worries, fears, struggles, etc….this is the way of the cross. So to practice faithful works and loving deeds without enduring hope will only lead to a burned out, empty faith. It is the enduring hope that I have in Jesus Christ that empowers my faithful works and loving deeds. This enduring hope is what drives my discipleship because it is the enduring hope that empowers me to stand up to a broken world and proclaim there is a different way to live and be in this world. I wonder what it looks like for a church to stand up in its community and constantly proclaim the enduring hope of Jesus Christ through their faithful work and loving deeds. Because faithful work and loving deeds without the proclamation of enduring hope in Jesus Christ is nothing more than humanitarian work. The proclamation of enduring hope without faithful work and loving deeds is nothing more than empty rhetoric. As a follower of Jesus I am called to hold these three in tension as each dynamic empowers and equips my discipleship to live out God’s call upon my life.
Lord Jesus, help me to be a man that practices what I preach today. Give me opportunities today to proclaim your enduring hope through practices of faithful work and loving deeds. Forgive me of those times that I manage to manipulate discipleship into something that it isn’t. Empower me to be the kind of disciple that seeks to follow in your footsteps with proclamation and action. Give me the grace to hold on to your hope and may that hope empower me to work faithfully and do acts of love within the world around me. Help me to seize this opportunity in my life today and empower Crossroads to embody this kind of discipleship that we learn about in this verse of scripture. Amen.
Through Christ I have a hope that produces faithful work and loving deeds that change the world.
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