1 Thessalonians 4
1 Thessalonians 4:1-18
1 Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God;
2 for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;
4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.
7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.
8 Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.
9 But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;
10 and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more;
11 that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you,
12 that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.
13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.
16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.
17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.
18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
I like verse 7 in the passion translation: “For God’s call on our lives is not to a life of compromise and perversion but to a life surrounded in holiness.” 1 Thessalonians 4:7 TPT
It seems that more and more the world’s answer is for us to on compromise our beliefs/ways to be accepting of others. While there may be instances that compromise is appropriate, Paul is instructing us to never compromise our life of purity and holiness.
The abounding that we acquire in our new life is one that has its evidence in sanctification, (freedom from following fleshly demands) and liberation to care for the needs of others in love. There is this correlation between lust and love, that operating in one disables the function of the other. Freedom from one, then, is greatly enabled by activating the other. The walking away from immorality is empowered by walking into love, where the concern for others is given precedence over personal needs. This is also given perspective in the knowledge that the end to our life on this earth is imminent. The losses we encounter with loved ones are also reminders that we, too, don’t have long till we’ll be standing face-to-face with the Most Holy One, giving account of actions that have either reflected honor for the price He paid, or an embrace of those passing things He came to deliver us from. A full revelation of this eternal life will transform how everything is seen from something to be consumed and anxious with or simply a love opportunity, where the very nature of Christ can be known and projected. The comforts the soul longs for will only find their legitimate gratification in things eternal.
In verses 3-4 the will of God is that we are sanctified, set apart from sin. In particular Paul mentions sexual immorality and in the AMP “that each of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor (being available for God’s purpose and separated from things profane)…” Being available for God’s purpose. Sexual immorality definitely distorts love and focuses on self and in these verses it is linked to making us unavailable. Availabilty, that really stirred in me, in what ways can we be more available or become unavailable to God’s purposes? Even if we don’t engage in the sexual lusts as Paul writes, we can become unavailable to God’s purpose in other ways: pain (physically/emotionally) can be consuming, wordly distractions, relationships, even exhaustion, anything that can consume our focus thus shifting our gaze away from Him, and who we are in Him. Even these things can cloud our vision or obstruct hearing. I’m so glad He shows us lovingly and steers us in His direction. May we see it and hear it.