Wouldn’t you desire to be so diligent in the LORD that the Apostle Paul would write,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. 1
Life wasn’t always easy for disciples for there were conflicts with both the Greek and Jewish cultures which did not appreciate ‘new life in Jesus’ but Paul gave this ‘atta boy’ for staying faithful through whatever was being experienced. This not only was of benefit for themselves but also was a validation of the wisdom of God for the terms of salvation He had set in Christ—their lives in Christ was proof that God was just in providing a Way that was possible to live—if—one was willing to humble themselves in repentance and commitment.
This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering—since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. 2
There comes a time of separation—a time when the LORD judges the lives of all who have or are living by His standard—and the justice of His judgment is plain in the sacrifice of Jesus, the raising Him to life and then endowing Jesus’s disciples with that same Life. What God has accomplished is believable by the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith.
To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. 3
We are called as examples of the possibilities inherent in the gift of God through salvation, that we are able to live properly in Jesus, affirming the sufficiency of the LORD’s work through Christ.
Are you cooperating with the LORD in His purposes lived out through your life in Him?
Today would be a good day to resolve to be ‘increasingly’ in the LORD.
