11 Thessalonians 2: 16 - 17

Paul is the writer of this book, around A.D. 51 or 52. He is writing to correct false ideas in the church. Letters took weeks and often months to travel back and forth and this allowed false ideas to spring up and hang on much longer than was desired. The telephone might have helped out a great deal, had it been invented.

I find the following verses a source of great hope for when we accepted Christ as our Savior, He forgave us of our sins and accepted us as one of His children. In John 10: 27-28 we read “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. And I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” Once we are in Jesus hands, nothing will stop us from joining Him in heaven someday. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. We do stumble, but we have the confidence that God will hear our confessions and will never go back on His promise to keep us in His hand. Others around us will fail us from time to time and we will fail them, but that word is not in His vocabulary. As the pastor of the church we attend at Myrtle Beach said yesterday, “the time has changed, the weather has changed , but God never changes”.

In the following verses, from Thessalonians, is another example of hope and comfort to all that the Lord calls His own. It was written to the Thessalonians and has good advice to us today, these many years later.

“ Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work”. 11 Thessalonians 2: 16-17.

Israel only had hope because God had chosen them and blessed them as His people. He wonderfully had supplied them and looked after them. In return they just had to live a life pleasing to God and to look forward to the coming Savior.

We see Paul praying that the Lord would encourage and establish the Thessalonians in truth and grace. These are good things that we should pray for ourselves and others. As humans, we need to feel encouragement from the Lord and fellow believers. We all have our down times and need to feel that, but also we need to be grounded in truth “good word and work”. We need to know the truth of the Bible (by reading it) and tell others of it. There is so much false teaching. Teaching that is meant too make people feel better about themselves, but often time does not tell the truth of the Bible.

The Lord, by His grace, has given us this hope and comfort to carry on no matter what may come our way. We know that every thing that is allowed to come our way is only because He has allowed it. He has a purpose for everything that happens in our life. We have hope because we know that the Lord only has good intentions for us and when hard times come our way, He will take us thru the fire again.

We serve a great and mighty God. A God that encourages and comforts us at all time. May you feel that at this time.

In Christian Love

Dale Heminger

Pastoral Visitation