Perhaps Today Devotional

Today's Devotional

WAITING FOR JESUS

So you received the message with joy from the Holy Spirit in spite of the severe suffering it brought you. In this way, you imitated both us and the Lord. As a result, you yourselves became an example to all the Christians in Greece. And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Greece, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it, for they themselves keep talking about the wonderful welcome you gave us and how you turned away from idols to serve the true and living God. And they speak of how you are looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven— Jesus, whom God raised from the dead. He is the one who has rescued us from the terrors of the coming judgment.
1 Thessalonians 1:6-io

THE INFANT church of Thessalonica was filled with former pagan idolaters who worshiped with the immoral rituals common to the Greco-Roman culture. After their conversion, these onetime pagans had begun to “serve the true and living God,” and were “looking forward to the coming of God’s Son from heaven.”

This is one of the many New Testament evidences that when any sinner comes to Christ, he or she begins a different way of life. So often contemporary Christians get it backwards. They try to change their way of life first to demonstrate their ability to become a Christian. Such attempts are futile. Without Christ, human beings can never stop sinning they lack the moral force to accomplish it. Then they become frustrated and disillusioned and sometimes completely reject Christianity and return to their former way of life.

The Bible is clear on this: First we must accept Christ by faith, and then, as He gives us the spiritual resources to change our way of life, we are enabled to do it. One of the best motivations to implement moral change is a strong belief in Jesus’ second coming. The apostle Paul was led by the Holy Spirit to teach these former pagans to anticipate Jesus’ coming. He taught them that Christ came into this world to seek and save the lost. He reminded them often that Christ had died sacrificially for their sins and was resurrected on the third day just as the Old Testament prophets had predicted. He taught them that they were to live waiting for Jesus to come again. This anticipation, said the apostle, would help them to turn from idols to serve the living God.

What was the manner of their waiting? This was no easy-chair passivity. Waiting is a discipline that demands a life of prayer and intentional study. Paul has already commended them for becoming “followers of us and of the Lord” (verse 6, NKJV). Further, he goes on to say, “You yourselves became an example to all the Christians in Greece. And now the word of the Lord is ringing out from you to people everywhere, even beyond Greece, for wherever we go we find people telling us about your faith in God. We don’t need to tell them about it” Evidently these new converts were energized with a second-coming zeal. This motivated them to preach the gospel to everyone in their area.

I once saw this graphically illustrated in the lives of a young dentist and his wife. They accepted Christ in our church many years ago. I don’t recall any couple ever leading more unsaved people to Christ than these two. When I questioned this vibrant young man as to how he won so many, he replied, “Everyone I know is a pagan in need of Christ.”

Later this evangelistic couple joined the Campus Crusade for Christ staff and served in the Churches Alive program. They spent the next thirty years teaching thousands of people how to share their faith in Christ Recently they began to read our Left Behind series and wrote to tell us how much they enjoyed the books. In the same letter, they reminded me that shortly after their conversion I had been teaching the book of Revelation on Sunday nights. The man freely admitted, “In those days, I must confess, I didn’t always understand what you were teaching even when my wife tried to explain it to me as we drove home from church. But one thing I did learn was that Jesus was coming and I had better get my house in order!”

Like the Thessalonians, this young couple had to totally change their lifestyle to “serve the true and living God.” Do they have any regrets? Certainly not. In the dentist’s letter he said, “It’s been a great life.” All through the years of my ministry I have never heard anyone complain that they had made a wrong decision in surrendering their lives to Christ. The reason is simple: The committed Christian life is the only meaningful way to live. And at the center of that meaning is the glorious hope of His coming.

Dear heavenly Father, I want to thank You for saving me and giving me direction in life. Without You I tend to scramble those decisions so important to my daily life. Thank You for all the promises of Jesus’ second coming. May they always motivate me to turn from the idols of my past and serve You, the living Lord of glory. In Jesus’ name, Amen.