Article for Sunday December 1, 2024
1 Thessalonians 3:9–10 9What thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, 10as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?
What thanksgiving can I return to God for you, as I feel the joy for your sake before God. I pray earnestly every day that we may see each other clearly and understand one another. That through God’s word and works we supply one another with whatever is lacking in our faith.
We, each one, are different in many ways as we have grown up in different places under different circumstances. Yet we are the same as we all have feelings of happiness, sadness, anger, remorse, laughter, and crying of tears. We may process information differently, have different physicality, but we all bleed red blood, catch a cold, become sick, injured, we all heal, and we all die.
Our faith may seem to differ, depending on what we are going through at any given time. But our faith, no matter how one might measure it, no matter if it is a lot or a little, helps in our salvation as Ephesians 2:8 & 9 says. In this we can comfort one another as Jesus Christ saves those with faith of any size. With this knowledge we can build each other up and together the Holy Spirit will increase our faith.
Jeremiah 33:14 14“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
This is a promise made from the time of Adam and Eve, from the time of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and all the prophets. A promise of salvation, though most may have thought it would be a salvation for this life on this earth. Still a promise of salvation to the ends of this earth and the end of time.
Israel and Judah will not be forgotten, they will not be forsaken. The promise was kept, and the promise is still being fulfilled. There are many people in this world who are confused by God’s word even many of those who claim to believe. The world thinks there is no God, no heaven, no hell, no salvation, and no damnation. The world is blind because it refuses to see as it disposes lies to the people in hopes of populating the hell they don’t believe in.
Jeremiah 33:15 15In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.
A promise made; a promise kept. Jesus came with salvation in His hands and feet. The justice that Jesus came with is not like that of man’s justice. Jesus came with a justice of repentance and forgiveness. Jesus came not to condemn but to save, John 3:17.
Repentance must be genuine, heartfelt, and repeated for every sin and for every time one sins. Jesus judges us by our heart, our given faith, and that we believe He is our Savior. Jesus bought us a justice that gives many people a means and way toward salvation. Though man’s justice is the consequence of our sin, it does not keep us from salvation. Better to suffer the consequences on this side of life than the other side of life or death. Just saying.
Jeremiah 33:16 16In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’”
Think of this as a new Judah and a new Jerusalem, as we look forward to the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We will all be secured becoming one people with God. I don’t know if we will all look alike, or if we will all be the same color or even have a color. But the one thing we can count on is that we will all be praising, thanking, and giving the glory to Jesus Christ as we realize we are living in our salvation.
Now this is what we understand. We will not enter the kingdom of heaven by our good works as we cannot do enough good works. We will not enter the kingdom of heaven because we think we are normally good, no one is good enough to merit passage. We will not enter the kingdom of heaven with our own righteousness. But we will enter the kingdom of heaven clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 3:11–13 11Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, 12and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, 13so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
Clothed in Christ’s righteousness, washed clean in the blood of the Holy Lamb, we are saved to live forever with our God. Jesus Christ will be there, and He will be our rabi who will continue teaching us the way of God’s love. We pray, God, please love us to life, Amen.
Written by Pastor Curtis A. May
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