What is the day-to-day life of the Christian? What are the basics of everyday Christianity? Paul reminds us in his letter to the Thessalonians.
1Thess 1:3 (ESV)
remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
There is a mundane-ness about everyday life even for Christians. We are called to work… labour… and keep going. How do we do this? How we do this is by drawing from the great resources that God has given us in the new life. We draw from faith, love and hope. These three are the dynamics of the new life in Christ.
Our work is a ‘work of faith‘. All Christian work is derived from and sustained by faith. Everything that God our Father asks us to do we do by constantly looking to him for enabling and direction. We work his works by communion with him. All other ‘work’ is ‘the works of the law’, that is, legalism. Christian work, of course, is not necessarily some great dramatic service for God. It is often the routine of life; as Paul says, ‘to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands… so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. ‘ (1 Thess 4:11,12)
Our labour, is a ‘labour of love‘. All Christian labour flows from the love that God the Father has ‘shed abroad‘ in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We have been ‘taught by God’ to love‘ ( 1 Thess 4:9) and we live drawing from the knowledge that we are ‘loved by God‘ and ‘chosen‘ by him (1 Thess 1:4). As we live abiding in his love our ‘labour’ is the overflow. Our ‘labour’ is a duty, an obligation, but we do not undertake it as a duty but out of love. And love transforms the demands of mere duty into joy and pleasure. We delight in the will of him who has sent us. We serve to ‘please him‘ (2:4). Love is the energy which impels our labour. Love is God’s life revealed in action.
That of course is not to deny that the work is difficult and the labour demanding (1 Thess 2:1, 9). They are strenuous and costly. Thus we ‘are steadfast in hope‘. The Christian life in its everyday reality calls for endurance. We live in a war-zone. The Thessalonians suffered because of their commitment to Christ. The word was ‘received in much affliction‘ (1 Thess 1:6 2: 14,15). Indeed hardship in life is the promise of the gospel (3:2). And so from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ in whom this life we have exists we derive persevering hope. We endure, seeing him who is invisible, serving God, as we ‘wait for his Son from heaven… Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come’ (1:10) knowing we are called to ‘share in God’s own kingdom and glory‘ (2:11).
And so we work, labour and endure. We triumph. But we do because we are equipped by God. He supplies the necessary armour for life in a war zone. We triumph, ‘having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.’ (1 Thess 5:8).
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