November 2022 Prayer Guide
INDIA — Give thanks for all of the outreach programs currently taking place in India. Seekers meetings and follow-up across the country are leading new believers to Christ. In addition to this, in-person discipleship conferences are being held to help train lay leaders. These conferences are interdenominational and are drawing the church together. A key […]
Love Your Pastor
Read: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28 Respect those who labor among you. (v. 12) In normal times, church leaders help members navigate family squabbles, health emergencies, and all sorts of personal crises. The last few years have been anything but normal. Pastoring through pandemic policies, political divides, and theological disagreements has only added to the “labor.” At the […]
When It Ends
Read: 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 Now concerning the times and the seasons . . . (v. 1) Why are some believers obsessed with figuring out when Jesus will return? They painstakingly connect contemporary events to biblical prophecy and often appear confident in their calendars. Yet, “concerning that day or that hour,” Jesus told the disciples, “no one knows, not even […]
How it Ends
Read: 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 That you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. (v. 13) I wrote this devotional the morning after a friend died unexpectedly. As the initial shock gave way to resurrection hope, I wondered, “How do nonbelievers navigate such loss?” For the Thessalonians, their anxiety about the Christian dead was […]
Quiet Power
Read: 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12 Mind your own affairs. (v. 11) The weeks leading up to an election bring a cacophony of noisy ads and boisterous declarations. Although Paul wrote verse 11 to the church of the Thessalonians, his words are also for us today “to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and […]
Holiness and Honor
Read: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. (v. 7) In today’s text, Paul pivots from pastoral joy over the Thessalonians’ faith and love to urging a lifestyle that pleases God. This is “sanctification” (v. 3), the process of becoming more holy. Christians seek to live holy lives, not in order […]
The Joy of Answered Prayer
Read: 1 Thessalonians 3:1-13 We pray most earnestly night and day. (v. 10) The problem-plagued moon mission of NASA’s Apollo 13 gripped the world for seven anxious days in April of 1970. No moment was more anxious than the six minutes of radio silence as the capsule reentered the atmosphere. Would the three astronauts survive? Imagine […]
The Real Deal
Read: 1 Thessalonians 2:13-20 You received the word of God . . . as what it really is. (v. 13) In verse 13, Paul weaves together ideas about God’s word, his preaching, and the response of the Thessalonians. He makes the stunning claim that in receiving what they heard from his preaching, they were in fact receiving the Word […]
Near and Dear
Read: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12 We have been . . . entrusted with the gospel. (v. 4) My grandson Elias was born earlier this year. His lungs were not getting enough oxygen, so he spent two weeks in the NICU. While visiting him, we met some extraordinary volunteers. Known as “The Rocking Grandmas,” these women give their time to hold […]