You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. (Matthew 22:37-40 ESV)
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. (John 15:12 ESV)
"Concerning times and seasons, brothers, you have no need for anything to be written to you."
ReplyDelete1 Thessalonians 5: 1
""We ask you, brothers, to respect those who are laboring among you and who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you, and to show esteem for them with special love on account of their work. Be at peace among yourselves."
1 Thessalonians 5: 12-13
Even though we may be strong enough to not need anything written to us because we are grounded in faith and in the Lord, we still need to respect the Church. We are called to respect all of those who are doing God's work among us and we are called to respect and prize those who are leaders in the Church with a special kind of love.
Although it may be easy to think that the Holy Spirit has formed you through your readings of the bible and through your quiet time alone, it is important to acknowledge that God has formed Church leaders in a special way to be spiritual shepherds and examples for us on this earth.
"But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ" 1 Thessalonians 5:8-9
ReplyDeleteSimilar to the much more famous set of Biblical armor in Ephesians, Paul is making a point of how our faith can prepare us for what is to come. The whole idea starts with being sober and belonging to the day. Anyone, no matter how strong or well-equipped, is vulnerable when they are sleep. By taking our attention off of God and drifting to sleep we make ourselves easy prey. Therefore, constant vigilance and having God in the forefront of our minds is the first step. Not a very complicated step, but something I find myself needing to work harder at nonetheless. We then reach the point where our knowledge of our salvation and faith in God can further prepare us. I believe that things as simple as daily quiet time and continuous prayer throughout the day can keep these fresh and always growing. Once again, these are not terribly complicated things to do. God does not ask us to be perfect, only to put Him first and pursue Him in the entirety of our lives. This allows God to prepare us for what is to come.