Reading through 1 Thessalonians 4 this afternoon, there were three words that came across twice in the passage that I could not get out of my head and those three words were: More and more.
More and more...what could that mean?
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.
(1 Thessalonians 4:1)
More and more! It's in the very first verse. We are being told as we ought to walk and to please God, that we need to do so more and more.
Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. (1 Thessalonians 4:10-12)
You see that more and more is in there again. We have been taught by God to love one another and we need to this more and more. Amen! I also love the end of that verse. We need to aspire to live quietly, and to mind our own affairs, and to work with our hands, so that we may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
I believe that is the key to the entire point that I want to make to you. When we do these things more and more, we will learn that we can live quietly, and to mind our own business. Our own business is our own personal relationship with Jesus Christ. When we live to please Him more and more we learn and recognize that we don't have to be dependent on anyone else for fulfillment. You wonder why you seem to not be able to trust anyone? Nobody else is God. You wonder why you can't be dependent on anyone? Anyone isn't God. I guess what I am trying to say is that even when you think you are doing a good job, there is always more that you can do. Always. More and More.
This goes beyond the spiritual realm of things as well. It's what we need to do on daily basis. There is always more you can do. We can always study more for that test we don't want to study for, we can always put in more effort on that homework that is only worth 5 points, we can always push ourselves harder at practice, even when we don't think we can. This all ties into our mindset. Have that mindset that you will do more and more because you can do more and more. Nothing is impossible. Anything you set your mind to you are fully capable of doing. More and more. Don't forget about it.
There is another part of this scripture that is important and I want to briefly touch on and that is sanctification.
The will of God for us is sanctification. Sanctification is the process of being holy, and it is a gift given from the power of God.
Let's take a look at what sanctification looks like in the eyes of God.
For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one transgress and wrong his brother in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God has not called us to impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. (1 Thessalonians 4:3-8)
Sanctification =
- abstaining from sexual immorality
- controlling our own bodies in holiness and honor
- no one transgress and wrong his brother
You might look at that scripture/list and think...oh crap that's me! It's you, it's me, it's everyone. We aren't perfect, we mess up. We can do a better job at being aware when we mess up, and do a better job at trying our best not to do those things. As good as we can possibly be at abstaining from those things, there is always more and more that we could do. We can always do better. We are seeds, meant for growth, remember that. Our growth process allows us to recognize that we need God in this life more than anything else.
Look at that last verse. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives us his Holy Spirit. When we disregard these things, we are disregarding God, not man. I think we get that prioritized incorrectly sometimes. We worry that if we don't do those things, we are disregarding our friends not true! They might get upset, but deep down, they wish that they had the self-control to abstain from those things. It's okay to be different! It's a billion times better to disregard man than it is to disregard God. It might not seem like it is, but trust me. Say no, abstain from those things, be different, please God, more and more!
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