Overview of: 1 ThessaloniansToday's Reading:
1 Thessalonians 4:1 - 5:28
"Expectant Living"
Focus Verses: 1 Thes. 4:11-12
11 Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
Insight:
The ambition of Christians, Paul says, is to be directed toward a quiet life. In their everyday lives they should avoid being a burden on others, mind their own affairs, hold down a job, and do honest work. Christians should live in a way that wins the respect of those who do not yet know or follow Christ.
Most people in the world are ambitious for possessions, achievement, success, happiness, and status. Christians just seem to add more ambitious projects to the mix (family, mission, worship, study, evangelism, family, social justice). If asked, I don't think most people, Christian or not, would say that a quiet life describes the life they are living. Even fewer would describe a quiet life as their ambition.
Response and Action:
What does ambition mean to me? What are my ambitions? As a follower of Jesus, I will be ambitious toward the regular activities of my everyday life. I will do an honest day's work. I will mind my own business. I will try not to be a burden on others. And I will do my best to live in a way that earns the respect of my neighbors and friends.
Living for Jesus begins with ordinary details of life: my routine, my responsibilities, and my relationships. I will not let other ambitions (even noble and good ones) distract me from the most basic of ambitions--to be quiet, content, rooted, and satisfied in Christ.
Dear Lord, make me ambitious about a quiet life in Jesus. Help me to be hardworking and responsible in my daily life. Help me to pay my bills, to be a good worker, to take care of my home, to be a good steward of all you have entrusted to me. Grant me the wisdom and the will to guard my heart, feed my spirit, stimulate my mind, and care for my body. Help me to live a contented and praiseworthy life that bears witness to your grace and power at work in me. Through Christ, Amen.
Old Testament for Today: Psalm 131:1-2a
1 My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. 2a But I have stilled and quieted my soul..."
In Context: Psalm 131
Proverb for Today: Prov. 15:16
"Better a little with the fear of the LORD than great wealth with turmoil."
Recommended Reading:
Living the Story: Biblical Spirituality for Everyday Christians
by R. Paul Stevens and Michael Green
