Day of Praise

We, Nov 28 "Day of Praise"

"We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." - 1 Thessalonians 1:3

Do you ever feel like you're constantly pushing the rock uphill?

It doesn't need to be that way.

I can count at least seventeen people off the top of my head who I know are reading this and who are loving life because they're in a season of learning to let go and let the Holy Spirit do the heavy lifting in life. It's as if the rock is rolling down hill.

It's not about laziness or a bad work ethic. To the contrary, what God tells us in today's verse through Paul is that a relationship with God through Jesus creates more effective, efficient, fruitful, and (dare I say it?) even joyful work.

Read the verse again for yourself, and you'll see it plainly says:
-- faith in our Lord Jesus Christ produces work,
-- love in our Lord Jesus Christ prompts labor, and
-- hope in our Lord Jesus Christ inspires endurance.

So, let's see if we've got this straight. If we just pour out our hearts with faith in Jesus, love in Jesus, and hope in Jesus, then work, labor, and endurance get easier? Yep. That's what it says.

Now, by my rough count, there have been about 380 Day of Praise devotions since 09/01/11. So I know how many people are going to respond to this encouragement.

Some of you are going to say, "I don't see it. They call it work because it's work." Well, I would say to you that I understand. And I also will pray for you as you keep rolling your rock uphill.

But the vast majority of you are going to say, "I didn't know that God makes those kinds of promises." And you're going to hold God to His promise because God is not a liar. And you're going to see how work, labor, and endurance get easier when God greases the gears of life by his own working of faith, love, and hope in Jesus Christ in our hearts.

And it's as if, well, it's as if the rock and the hill just disappear.

That's the power of the promises of our God!

Praise God!

Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson