1 Thessalonians 5:11
Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
What of Today’s Verse…
While Paul’s exhortation here is excellent, it is the style of the exhortation we should especially notice. We live in an age where we are constantly pressured to emphasize the novel, new, or improved versions of things. But in our lives as Christians, we need to remind each other of what we are doing right and just simply say, “Hey, you’re doing well, just keep doing what you’re doing!”
Let us Pray:
Faithful Father, thank you for noticing and keeping record of the things I’ve done that are good and pleasing to you. Please help me to keep doing those things that please you, only do them better, that you may be pleased and glorified. In Jesus name. Amen.
Words of Wisdom
Something More About His Ways
He comes where He commands us to leave.
“When Jesus had made an end of commanding his disciples, he departed thence to teach and to preach in their cities.” Matthew 11:1.
If when God said “Go,” you stayed because you were so concerned about your people at home, you robbed them of the teaching and preaching of Jesus Christ Himself. When you obeyed and left all consequences to God, the Lord went into your city to teach; as long as you would not obey, you were in the way. Watch where you begin to debate and to put what you call duty in competition with your Lord’s commands. “I know He told me to go, but then my duty was here;” that means you do not believe that Jesus means what He says.
He teaches where He instructs us not to.
“Master, . . . let us make three tabernacles.”
Are we playing the spiritual amateur providence in other lives? Are we so noisy in our instruction of others that God cannot get anywhere near them? We have to keep our mouths shut and our spirits alert. God wants to instruct us in regard to His Son, He wants to turn our times of prayer into mounts of transfiguration, and we will not let Him. When we are certain of the way God is going to work, He will never work in that way any more.
He works where He sends us to wait.
“Tarry ye . . . until . . .” Wait on God and He will work, but don’t wait in spiritual sulks because you cannot see an inch in front of you! Are we detached enough from our own spiritual hysterics to wait on God? To wait is not to sit with folded hands, but to learn to do what we are told.
These are phases of His ways we rarely recognize.
