Good morning and happy Thursday. As I read God’s Word and prepared for the 5MC this morn I glanced out the window and enjoyed watching the sun come up. It looks like the brief rain and clouds are moving out today for sunshine. The rest of the week here in North Texas is due to be sunny with highs around 60. Is it just me or has this winter so far been very mild? I can only recall a few freezes so far and here we are at the 20th of December, only 11 days from 2019. Well, let me say that I love it. I don’t mind a cold snap here and there, but I’m much more of a warm weather guy. And not just warm but sun. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I am 100% addicted to the sun. I get such a kick out of sunshine. It can be cold, hot, windy, whatever, but there needs to be sunshine. In fact, it was quite the joke on us as we got to Maui and after about a year of living there realized it was consistently more sunny in North Texas than it was on Maui. What? Yep. Pretty crazy huh? Well, it’s good to be back to the sunshine of Texas and especially nice that our first winter back is mild so far. Keep it going.
Today we are in the chapter 2 of 1 Thessalonians. Yesterday we touched on the history of the book and the facts of its existence. If you missed yesterday, (or any prior days) you can find them all compiled and easily found on the website, The5MC.com. On the main page you’ll see tabs below the main banner pic, that are the books of the Bible. Click on the book you want and then it will take you to every chapter that we’ve looked at within that book. I’ve worked really hard to make sure that you can find any chapter in any book very easily. My hope is that you can use the 5MC as a handy-dandy reference any time you need it. Oh, also, if you’ve missed any writings from this week, Marge & I had a small issue with the postings and some might not have made it onto Facebook. They posted to the website correctly, just not Facebook. Anyhoo, I built the website for you guys, please feel free to use it all you can and please share the site with anybody you want to experience the Word of God!
Well, this morning in chapter 2 Paul opens with his ministry unto the Thessalonian church. He tells them that right before this he suffered greatly in Philippi but he didn’t let it deter him one bit from coming to them. By the way, this could be an entire lesson in itself, how do we react to adversity when giving out the Word of God. When Paul suffered for the Gospel (even when he got stoned almost to death in Lystra) he got up and kept going. As Joe Dirt would say, “just keep on keepin’ on.” (yes I used a Joe Dirt quote in reference to Paul)
Paul then lays out great foundations for those that are giving out the Word of God. You don’t do it for personal glory. You don’t do it for personal riches. You don’t do it for position or power. In fact, if you are going to make it a personal commitment to give out the Word of God, Paul says it will be quite the opposite. You will have to walk straighter, talk better and act better because if you are teaching the Word of God, the eyes of the world will be upon you. And not in a good way all the time. Many will be looking for any fault so they can help you in an unplanned fall. Oh, and also, you’ll have to do all this and also work 14 hours a day because no one will support you. You’ll have to preach all you can and sell tents on the side to feed yourself. You know when you hear what Paul did to proclaim the Gospel it makes you wonder why he did it. Getting stoned to near death, getting ran out of towns with threats of death, receiving no support or love from so many. Our love of Christ combined with His power can create some amazing testimonies.
The verse that God put on my heart this morning was 1 Thes 2:13.
“And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the Word of God, which is at work in you believers.” 1 Thes 2:13
What a beautiful, powerful verse and so relevant for us today. It deals with our relation and reaction to the Holy Word of God. How do you see the Word of God? Is the Word of God real? Is it just a history book? What does it mean when people say it’s Living? Some people say God’s Word speaks to them but when I read it, it makes no sense. I’ve heard these all and I’ve probably said them all as I look back on my relationship with God’s Word.
It’s kinda like a dog chasing his tail. If you have called upon the name of Jesus as your Savior then you have been gifted with the Holy Spirit of God to live within you. Since God’s Word is from God, by God and for God, we will need God to understand it. With the Holy Spirt and prayer, God will use His Word to grant us wisdom and knowledge. But what if you’re not a Christian? What if you have not called upon the name of Jesus Christ to save you from your sins? Well, then you don’t have the Holy Spirit. It’s pretty clear. So then how do these folks see the Word of God? Hence the dog and his tail. So you need God to understand God, but without God you can’t understand God? How do I ever start? Let me call upon my own personal experience as our example.
I grew up in a family that didn’t go to church. We might have had a Bible in the house, but I don’t recall ever seeing one. By casual, societal exposure I knew of a lot of the Bible stories though. I mean you don’t have to go to church to have heard of Noah and the Ark, David and Goliath, Daniel and the Lion’s Den, etc. I remember on Sunday mornings there was a cartoon on called Davy and Goliath, a boy and his dog that would explore the principles of God. I used to watch that. In my late teens I started to get invites to church from friends. I started going. Since I had never been to church, it was VERY foreign to me, even a little uncomfortable. (isn’t it funny that what we are unfamiliar with can seem scary or even dangerous to us?) As I continued to go sporadically with friends, the services no longer seemed so strange but the Bible, well, what is that all about?
I remember my first impressions upon hearing God’s Word spoken verbatim. Back then it was King James only and initially the language barrier alone caused great confusion. But beyond that the message was confusing. The ideas, the concepts and the behavior called for in this book were all against the culture and society I had witnessed growing up. I didn’t see much of the behavior that they were talking about as I went to work, school and the lake to Jet-Ski. I was lost, living in a lost world and that was all I knew. I look back now and as I sat in those church pews I was a foreigner in a foreign land, and I was listening to a foreign language. And the language was that of God.
I also got really hung up on what I could not personally understand in the Bible. I mean really, how can all these guys live to be like 900 years old? I mean Methusaleh is 969 years old when he died? And what about all those miracles? Do we have video evidence of all these? Surely as old as the Bible is there has got to be some error and even some embellishment right? Again, I look back now and realize that was satan battling me. Battling how I viewed and received the Word of God. You see when I was first exposed to the Word of God, I was trying to understand it with Dan’s 3lb brain. I do not have the thought capacity of God, how could I ever truly understand His Word, especially without the help of His Holy Spirit? One of my favorite Proverbs is 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” We’re not meant to understand it all. God doesn’t ask for our understanding, he asks for our belief.
When I was about 22 I met the love of my life, My Margie. Margie had grown up in a Christian home and was enjoying a thriving relationship with Christ and attending Dallas Baptist University. What she exuded was something that still eluded me and seemed very foreign to me. Margie was very aware of the perils of the enequally yoked relationship, and knew that with me as an unbeliever, that our future as a couple was bleak. She kept inviting me to church and I went yet again. But this time it was different. I was hurting. I was living a life that sadly was all about me. I was struggling with sin, selfishness and purpose. My hurting created a yearning and my friends, that is where God meets unbelievers. God can meet you right where you stand, right where you sit, right where you are. You see we don’t seek God, God seeks us. God found me in my apartment in Garland, Texas in 1994. Margie was there and knelt beside me. And it all changed. In an instant.
You see it’s back to that dog chasing his tail. I couldn’t understand His Word before and couldn’t understand why. At that miracle moment, God sent His Spirit. As Amazing Grace says, I was lost but now I’m found. Folks, it can happen in an instant and it can happen to anybody, anywhere. You present God’s Word to a hurting sinner and then stand back and watch God work. God saves sinners, that what He does.
Well, now I wish I could say that I picked up a Bible and started quoting verses by the dozens. Not so much. I wish I could say that I was even reading the Bible. Not so much. You see the believer and God’s Word are like two highly combustible materials. If you keep them separate, they’re harmless. Harmless to satan and harmeless to this world. But get them together and BAM!!! Now you’ve got some real fireworks. Fireworks for God. It took years of living a rather mediocre Christian life before I learned of this explosive formula. When I did, I knew that others needed to experience this power, goodness and peace that came from immersing yourself in God’s Word every day. That is the reason you’re reading this right now and the sole reason the 5MC exists. “To encourage all to spend daily time in God’s Word.”
So how do you see the Word of God? Do you see it with your own understanding? Do you look at it through the lens of your brain’s own logic? I pray today that you can experience the shift that I did. The Holy Word of God is just that, God breathed words to empower us as we walk this Earth and share His Gospel with others. As our study verse says, “accept it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the Word of God.
I pray today that you are not just reading God’s Word but experiencing God’s Word. That it is permeating your soul and becoming a part of you. A part of you that God wants to raise to the surface. God’s Words make us better, if we let them in.
Merry Christmas and Praise God for His Son!
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