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September 10, 2024; Day 3 of Week 24
- 2024/09/10
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あらすじ・解説
Daily Dose of Hope September 10, 2024 Day 3 of Week 24 Scripture: Proverbs 22-23; Psalm 117; I Thessalonians 1 Welcome to the Daily Dose of Hope, the devotional and podcast that complements the New Hope Church Bible reading plan. Let’s get right into our Scripture for this morning. Our first Old Testament passage is Proverbs 22-23. I’ve mentioned that I struggle getting through the Proverbs. To me, they seem a bit disjointed – so many different topics without any cohesive theme. I wanted to share with you that I’ve been praying about it. I’m hoping that God can teach me through these little wise sayings. Today, something definitely caught my eye. It was in chapter 22:17-19, Pay attention and turn your ear to the sayings of the wise; apply your heart to what I teach, for it is pleasing when you keep them in your heart and have all of them ready on your lips. So that your trust may be in the Lord, I teach you today, even you. I want us to read these verses thinking less about the proverbs specifically and more about Scripture in general. We don’t want to just hear God’s Word, but heed it and obey it. It reminded me of Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:24-25, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. The point of Scripture is not just to read and study it, but to figure out how to implement it in our lives. What proverbs from today’s reading stuck out to you? What new bits of wisdom are you going to try to integrate into your life? I do hope you took the time to read Psalm 117. I think it’s the shortest psalm of all the psalms. But despite being just a few lines, it really summarizes our relationship with God or rather, what it should be. We should be praising God. All the nations should be praising God. He is faithful, just, and worthy of praise. How often do you envision all the nations praising the Lord? What will it take for that to happen? Our New Testament passage is I Thessalonians 1. This book is a pastoral letter from Paul, Timothy, and Silas, to the church at Thessalonica. The authors are together in Corinth when they get the news of how faithful the Thessalonians have been in spite of intense persecution. This is a letter of encouragement. It was normal in an ancient letter to include some kind of prayer for the recipient after the greeting. We can see how, early in the letter, the authors state that they continually thank God for all the people in the church, and that they remember them before God because of their work produced through faith and love and their endurance inspired by hope in Jesus. I am most intrigued by the line "endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." Endurance is the ability to keep going, to persevere, in the face of difficulty and suffering. We don't know exactly what kind of persecution the Thessalonian Christians were facing but it must have been pretty bad. And Paul was worried about them. They were new believers-how would they withstand these hardships? Would their faith crumble or strengthen? Apparently, they remained strong and steadfast, despite their limited experience in the faith. This idea of endurance through hardship becomes a virtue in the early church. Here is the important part: their endurance was not a result of some kind of internal emotional strength or resolve but was due to their hope in Jesus. Their hope was rooted in the second coming of Jesus, which will become a theme throughout this letter. Think about your own life. How would you rate your endurance in the face of hardship? While we don't face the same kind of persecution as the Thessalonian church, we still deal with other challenges. How is your faith grounded in the hope of Christ? Blessings, Pastor Vicki