Blog Thoughts, December 6, 2020

I still plan on meandering slowly through I Thessalonians.  You are welcome to come along.  

"We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers; constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the presence of our God and Father." I Thessalonians 1:2-3

I know what it is to serve God in a work of faith and labor of love with steadfastness of hope.  I try to lift up my pastor and wife to God nightly as they now carry the torch while I sit in the back pew, now the virtual back pew.   

It is not that God has freed me from serving Him in faith, hope and love, but it has shifted, changed.  When you work your whole life and labor in love, it is exhausting.  I found out in my recent illness how feeble and frail I truly was.  After all the years working in the harvest by the sweat of our brow, the fruit is not often seen.  All you can do is feed the thresher, and it will sort the seed from the chaff.  So many in the church have closed their ears and hearts that it is hard not to become jaded wondering what the use was.  Yet, I rejoice that my preacher man is on the other side seeing many who are the fruit of his labor there.  Alas, we can only see thru a glass darkly here below.

Adam Clarke says of "'Your work of faith.'  This verse contains a very high character of the believers of Thessalonica.  They had real faith, not speculative and indolent, but true, sound, and operative...a love as labored with faith to fulfill the whole will of God.  Faith worked; but love, because it can do more, did more, and therefore labored worked energetically, to promote the glory of God and the salvation of men.  They had hope...to which faith had descried, and love anticipated."  

Hope.  In Anne of Green Gables, Anne relishes the "delights of anticipation."  Anne said, "looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them."

Henry W. Longfellow wrote the Christmas Carol that strikes a chord in our world today.

"I heard the bells on Christmas Day Their old, familiar carols play, And wild and sweet the words repeat Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.  I thought how, as the day had come, The belfries of all Christendom Had roll'd along th'unbroken song Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.  And in despair I bow'd my head.  'There is no peace on earth,' I said, 'For hate is strong , mocks the song Of peace on earth, goodwill to men.'  Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: 'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, With peace on earth, goodwill to men.'  Till, ringing, singing on its way, The whole world revolv'd from night to day, A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, Of peace on earth, goodwill to men!"  His heart was probably broken with all that the Civil War had wrought, yet knew God is not dead, nor doth He sleep.  

So take heart you who labor.  Keep doing the work of faith, the labor of  love in the steadfastness of hope.  Keep feeding that thresher!   It reveals the fruit that remains which will not return void.

The birthplace of Jesus was Bethlehem which means house of bread.  Bread, the sustenance of life, is made with the wheat grain that is separated from the chaff.  Think of how much chaff was blown away in the wind while the grain settled down in the winnowing basket.  precious Mary labored in a stable, then the Savior was laid on a bed of hay, in a feed trough, in that city of Bethlehem.  In the Last Supper, "Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples,  Take, eat; this is My body."  Our Savior knew the labor of love He was doing and thought we were worth it.