2 THESSALONIANS 1:1-12
2 THESSALONIANS 1:1-12
New International Version
1 Paul, Silas and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
2 Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. 4 Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
5 All this is evidence that God’s judgment is right, and as a result you will be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are suffering. 6 God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you 7 and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9 They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might 10 on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.
11 With this in mind, we constantly pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling, and that by his power he may bring to fruition your every desire for goodness and your every deed prompted by faith. 12 We pray this 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.
2 THESSALONIANS 1:3-4
We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
REFLECTION
How could it be that people who are hated and persecuted by their neighbors are flourishing in their faith? Endurance. Just like an athlete trains their body by putting it through increasingly strenuous exercises, we too grow spiritually through the hard things that we endure. Endurance is not a passive survival of the things that life throws our way. Endurance is the active repurposing of the trials we face to strengthen us and grow us in Christ. Yes, life for the church in Thessalonica was hard, but their devotion to the kingdom of God and their faith in the midst of trials drew them closer to God and to each other.
RESPONSE
When you go through hard things in life, is your tendency to draw closer to God or not?
When life is great, and you don’t have a care in the world, is your tendency to draw nearer to God or not?
Reflect on the difficult things that you’ve been through and ask God to reveal to you the ways that He has grown you in those trials. If you are currently going through something difficult, ask God for the faith and endurance to make it through.
