Day 127, 1 Thessalonians 2
Here’s more insight into the way the Kingdom of God keeps advancing, even when there is great persecution. Paul reminds the believers in Thessalonica that he and his team came from Philippi, where they were treated shamefully (Acts 16). He says it was God who emboldened them to preach to the Thessalonians fearlessly. When we are in constant and deep relationship with God, abiding in love, we will often find ourselves boldly doing what we would never do in our own strength! It is the heart desire to please God that motivates our actions.
And when we are motivated by a desire to please God, our actions and inspiration become more and more like His: fatherly, motherly, tender and forbearing. There is constant invitation to experience more and go deeper.
You can feel Paul’s deep love and compassion for these brothers and sisters, from whom he was separated so suddenly and forcefully. It’s equivalent to a father whose children are taken from him suddenly. There is pain and longing in Paul’s heart for his spiritual children. Anyone who has tasted the depth and breadth of God’s heart for a friend or family member will identify with Paul’s longing to be reunited with them, but in the meantime he comforts them with the knowledge that their sufferings at the hands of local Jews is comparable to the sufferings of their kin in Jerusalem and Judea, who believed in Jesus in the early years after the birth of the Church.
And you and I can have compassion for those suffering for their faith around the world: our plight is so much less challenging than theirs, yet it also gives us empathy and compassion in prayer and action to see them share our hope in God.
Have a great day!
Mark.