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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness Gal 5:22 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Friday, August 29, 2025
Today's Passage : Today's Passage:Discipline and Love [1] BibleVerse:1 Thessalonians 5:14-15 "And we urge you, do not be hesitant to chide the undisciplined and lazy (but always out of love). Encourage the faint of heart, help the weak, and with everyone, be patient. " Message:
The most prominent teaching in today’s passage dovetails with the preceding verses. (See Living in Peace.) Paul implied in verses 11-13 that we must not be defensive or prideful when a leader of our church corrects our conduct. But here we learn that correcting misbehavior is a duty that lies not only with leaders, but with every member. This is not advice. This is a Biblical commandment. Yet how many of us are willing to sacrifice an earthly desire, not to have a friend or brother/sister angry and defensive with us, in order to follow the Bible’s clear teaching?
One guard against this is advertising one’s willingness to be corrected. Try to be open with your brothers and sisters about your mistakes. If that is too embarrassing, at least talk to one person. Catholics and some others have formal, liturgical confession; those of other denominations need to seek out someone to work with them on persistent sins.
Counterbalancing this duty, we have frequent reminders that the church should live in unity and love. But we so often get it backwards. We seek unity and love in not mentioning the sins of our friends at church; but we create disunity and arguments about personal matters: politics, church governance, personal like and dislikes — or worst of all, our own opinions of right and wrong, that come from our own minds and not by a direct citation to Scripture.
It plagues not only church members, but also clergy. Nobody wants to anger their congregation and decrease the number of people sitting in the pews on Sunday, and so, the true Gospel sometimes goes unpreached and unheard. Satan’s great tools, the importation of democratic values and convictions of personal liberty into church doctrine, turns church leaders into secular apologists rather than staunch defenders of the Christian faith.
Paul does not extend this duty, or privilege, outside the church. He does not tell us to “chide the idle and undisciplined” outside the circle of our church. We must preach the Gospel, for this is the Great Commission given to us by Christ; however, at no point does the Bible encourage us to rail against the sins of non-Christians.
This even makes sense: It does not matter how much sin a person commits if he has not come to Christ. Good people go to hell, if they have not found Christ. People who do find Christ are attracted by love and forgiveness; to tell them their sins is to present Christianity as a legalistic neo-Judaism dominated by rules of conduct.
Meditation : If you try to obey Christ without loving Him, it becomes a duty and a chore. Prayer : Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. |
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