1 Thessalonians 3:9-10 – For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?
Despite what the Father of Lies shouts through the media and social media, not all Christians are hypocrites and not all churches are bad. While Paul longs to visit them, in the meantime, he comforts them with triple truths that should comfort us as well.
One, God is present with people we cannot be present with. Sometimes, the person we love is quarantined in the hospital, living far away, deployed with the military, or we are in a season when we want to be with them but for some reason cannot. This is a deep comfort to the believer, that when we are hurting, we are not alone, and when those we love are hurting, they are not alone.
Two, you can be with someone spiritually even when you cannot be with them physically. Paul does this by communication via letter – and we can add a phone call, text, email, and other technological means we have in our day. Paul also does this by praying saying, “we pray most earnestly night and day…” (3:10). Those who are deeply sensitive to the presence of the Holy Spirit will report that their soul can literally feel the power of prayer from people who are not with them physically but connected to them by the Holy Spirit spiritually.
Three, one day the bad will end, and good will begin and never end. Eventually, we will all die and go Home, or Jesus will return and bring Home to us. Either way, the broken world we live in has an expiration date and things won’t be like this forever. Paul is telling them and us that there are some pains and perils for God’s people in this life that are simply unavoidable.
We cannot make life perfect on this side of glory any more than we can make ourselves perfect on this side of glory. Nothing is perfect until Jesus returns to do what only He can do – make all things perfectly new! Until that day, we need to have the long view of things and wait for the glorious day of “the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints” (3:13).
Too often, we can wrongly think of the end of this life as a finish line. For the Christian, the end of this life is a starting line and everything we do and learn beforehand is to prepare us for the race that never ends. This is the long view of things made possible by Jesus’ resurrection, which is the guarantee of our resurrection.
Read 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 carefully to learn more about Jesus’ Second Coming.
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