Bible Verse of the Day Friday June 2nd, 2023

1 Thessalonians 1:3 We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

In a world that falls for smokescreens and seems to give more esteem to intents than deeds, don't you find it energizing that Paul expects — and gives thanks — that the Thessalonian disciples' faith, hope, and love will naturally yield certain activities? Faith delivers work, love motivates labor, and hope inspires endurance. These new followers of Christ were surpassing in the lasting three qualities of discipleship (1 Corinthians 13:13), and these virtues were leading to their work, labor, and endurance! God will continually revive and refresh us with the power of his Holy Spirit and fill our lives with the result that his grace and character will stimulate. 

Their "labor prompted by love" speaks of their good works for God that are motivated by their love for Christ Jesus. As followers of Christ, we are not to only endure life out of a function of duty; we are to live every day filled with the fire of our love for Jesus and His sacrifice for us on the Hill of Calvary. Our love for Him shines out in our lives because He is our daily joy, fulfillment, nucleus, and center. We can live without many things in our daily lives; Jesus is not one of these things. Jesus is the entirety of our being, and how we live our lives should display that beauty.

We can glean many life lessons from this scripture verse in our endeavor to live our lives reflecting the light of Jesus in this lost, dark, and dying world. We should live every day working towards spreading the Gospel of Christ Jesus to the ends of the earth. If all of God's children lived as though Jesus is coming back today, which He might do, this would be a different world. Hope brings about a confidence in life that the world will never comprehend. Faith, hope, and love (1 Corinthians 13) are traits of a surrendered Christian and the path by which we can weather any storm that befalls us. If we find ourselves struggling with endurance in our Christian walk, we should not seek to endure better on our own. We have only to place our hope in Christ Jesus, which will produce endurance.