Paul tells the Thessalonians, as you already please God, do so more and more. E. Stanley Jones lingers with that phrase. He notes how Paul encourages first, then supplies what is lacking in their faith. Paul pats their back with one hand and points forward with the other. Growth in Jesus is not pressure to perform. It is invitation from love.

Paul wrote, For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord. E. Stanley Jones reflects on the beauty and the limit of empathy. Paul loved people deeply, yet his life did not rise and fall with every swing of their emotions or outcomes. He lived in the Lord, not in them. That anchored affection. It did not shrink love. It set love free to be steady.

Affliction can make us feel alone. Today’s reading says the opposite. Paul sent Timothy to strengthen the Thessalonians so that no one would be moved by their troubles. E. Stanley Jones reminds us that being in Jesus is also being in the koinonia, the shared life of believers. This life is not grown in solitary aloneness. It breathes best, not with isolation, but with brothers and sisters who carry the same Christ within.

Paul told the Thessalonians they became imitators of the churches in Jesus, and earlier he had said they became imitators of the apostles and of the Lord. E. Stanley Jones asks the honest question. If we are in Jesus, is there still a place for imitation. His answer is gentle and freeing. When our first allegiance is to the Lord, we can gladly learn from any good example without losing who we are. The center holds, and the learning multiplies.

Paul remembers a church by three living notes. Their work of faith, their labor of love, and their steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. E. Stanley Jones lingers here and says, outside of Jesus you can still work, still labor, still grit your teeth in hope, but the soul goes missing. Life bumps along on broken springs. In Jesus, the same three become worship. Work hums with faith, labor is carried by love, and hope holds steady.

Paul’s greeting to the Thessalonians carries two anchors. To the church in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. E. Stanley Jones pauses here and says, keep both emphases. If you only say church of God, you dim Jesus. If you only say church of Christ, you dim the Father. Together they make an exclamation point, not of noise, but of union, God with us in His Son, and us in God through His Son.

Psalm 150 opens the door and invites us to praise the Lord with everything we are. Today’s reading tells a tender story. A child pounds out clumsy notes on a hotel piano. A master musician sits beside her and answers every wrong note with a better one until the room fills with music. F. B. Meyer says he has often felt like that child, yet he has discovered the Holy Spirit right beside him, turning discord into a Hallelujah chorus.

Some words sound heavy until grace lifts them. Consecration is one of those words. Today’s reading points to a simple, beautiful reality. At conversion, Jesus gives and we receive. In consecration, we yield ourselves, and He gladly receives what is already His. It is not a barter. It is belonging expressed.

Some days I live by what sits right in front of my face. Deadlines. Headlines. My own small circle. Paul nudges me kindly in 2 Corinthians 10:7. Do not stare only at the surface. Look again, and remember, we belong to Jesus. There is more in play than what my eyes can count.

Some days I measure everything in columns. Time here, money there, skill in one box, need in another. Today’s reading gently turns my eyes to the real hinge of ministry and daily living, the Lord’s blessing. When His favor rests on a person or a work, lack does not get the last word. Psalm 3 says, may your blessing be on your people. That line lands like rain on dry ground.

Waiting can feel like standing still while the world runs past. Psalm 37 invites us to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. Today’s reading tells the story of a man falsely accused, who carried quiet shame for years. In that long season, he took the path of yielding rather than self defense. He cared for the child left at his door. He trusted God to hold his name. Years later, truth came to light. The vindication arrived, but the deeper work had already been done inside him.

Some days I feel small. Work stretches thin, relationships pull tight, and my own resources falter. This reading points me to a different way of seeing. The apostle Paul lifts my eyes from how strong I feel, to how present Jesus is. God’s power finds a fitting home where my strength runs out.

Some situations change slowly, and some never seem to move at all. This reading points me to a deeper freedom that is not chained to circumstances. Ray Stedman reminds us that the question is not first, can I get out of this, but rather, who am I in Jesus right now. Paul said you can be God’s free person in the very place that taxes you, because freedom starts on the inside.

The Lord loves to steady our hearts by pointing us to what is faithful and true. Revelation gives us this anchor, that the words of the risen Lord are faithful and true, and that He Himself is the Faithful and True Witness. We are not left to chase feelings or manage life by hunches. We are invited to lean our weight on the character of Jesus and the reliability of His word.

You and I both know what it is to look back at chapters we would rather forget. Today’s reading from A. B. Simpson looks straight at those pages and says, God delights to rewrite them with mercy. Not with whiteout, but with redemption. He takes what was broken and makes it a showcase of His kindness.

Prayer, Chambers reminds us, is not the warm up before the work, it is the work that unlocks the Lord’s sending. The harvest belongs to Jesus, not to our plans. So the first move is not strategy or hustle, it is turning to the Lord of the harvest in trusting prayer.

A friend leaves a simple reminder on the table, present yourself to God as those who are alive from the dead. Romans 6:13. Miles Stanford helps us slow down long enough to notice the order that Scripture gives us. First, we come to know what God has already done in Jesus. We died to sin with Him. We were made alive to God with Him. Only then do we present ourselves. Consecration is not polishing the old you. It is offering the new you that God has already raised with His Son.

We watch the scene in Matthew 14, five loaves, two fish, a hillside full of hungry people, and hear Jesus say, Bring them to Me. Witness Lee reminds us that what sits in our hands looks small, but once it passes into His hands, it becomes blessing that runs beyond us. That is not a call to strain. It is an invitation to entrust.

Some truths come to us like hand-me-down clothes. They fit well enough, and we are grateful. Other truths are stitched to us by the Lord Himself. They are not borrowed, they are born within, and once they are there, nothing on earth can unmake them. T. Austin-Sparks points to this second kind of knowing. He says that when Jesus is revealed within, not as a theory but as Life, there is stability, assurance, and freshness. There is also a different path that can be lonely at times, because not everyone understands an inward leading that moves beyond second-hand religion.

When Paul went up to Jerusalem, he went in response to a revelation, not a trend or an expectation. That simple line in Galatians 2:2 steadies my heart. It tells me that Jesus leads His people personally, and His Spirit initiates the works He means to do through us. Thank you, T. Austin-Sparks, for reminding us that imitation cannot replace inspiration from the Lord.