Thursday, November 8, 2012
1 Thessalonians 3:11-13 And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.
RESURRECTION, REUNION, AND RIGHTEOUSNESS IN CHRIST
In his first letter to the Thessalonian Christians, the apostle Paul says he looks forward to standing before Jesus with the Thessalonian Christians beside him and in the company of all the believers who had come before. With his words Paul directs our minds to the final resurrection.
In this same letter Paul describes how on the last day Jesus will descend bodily from the sky with a great cry and the trumpet call of God. In an instant those who died trusting in Christ for forgiveness will be raised from the dead to stand beside the believers still living on the earth. And then together they will be lifted up to meet Jesus in the air. Eternal life with Christ will begin in the sky.
This is what you and I have to look forward to! Resurrection and reunion awaits us! And all this is made possible because the Holy Spirit has brought us to trust in the message that Jesus suffered and died in our place, and was raised to life because His sacrifice was accepted. Only through Christ are our sins atoned for, and this exciting future made ours.
Paul encourages the Thessalonian Christians to keep on loving one another in Christ. To keep on building each other up in faith through the Scriptures. To keep the grip of faith tight on the promises of Christ.
Because the Holy Spirit has preserved these words for us to hear, these encouragements from Paul come to us today also. Let us also keep on encouraging one another to hold onto Christ by faith, and to look forward to our resurrection, reunion, and to the day when Christ's righteousness will be sealed upon us forever.
