The end of Colossians and the beginning of Thessalonians are short, so I thought I'd throw two down today, to do some catching up.
1:3 - Labor of love. Is that what your personal ministry is to you? Sometimes I think we allow our own ministries (we are all ministers, so don't check out!) to become this dead weight crushing us...an obligation that we must fulfill to be "good Christians." This is how people get burned out. We must never forget to look at out ministry in this world as a labor of love. It is labor...it is hard, but it is about love. It is not about saving ourselves or being "good Christians," our labor for the Lord is about understanding how huge His love for us is and wanting other people to come in contact with that. If you lose that focus, you will lose any ability to function as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
1:8 - This reminds me of a quote from St. Francis of Assisi, "Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words." Great quote. Paul tells the Thessalonians their faith has gone everywhere because of their actions and applauds them because they haven't even had to say anything...they have just loved on people. Every day we should all be preaching that kind of Gospel...preaching the love of God through our actions. But don't forget - don't use St. Frannies quote as an excuse to allow you to only do "nice things" and consider your ministry finished. He said, "when necessary use words." There are times when it is definitely necessary to speak the words of God's love into people's lives. Be ready when the call to speak is placed on you.
3 comments:
We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith
as if as they are praying God is reminding them of their brothers to encourage them
as if when they are praying*
David should do a sermon series on how Northside should mirror this church. They were evangelistic as shown in versus 7 and 8. Anywhere there are new believers we should encourage and support them as part of our ministry.
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