Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.
May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.
Brothers, pray for us. Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss. I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” ~ 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28
Some of you had been touched, sad about the mother I described who was in active labor from my last post. Sad because of the imminent loss of her child who was about to be born, as the mother had to stay in the jail after the child's birth. Would your perspective change if I tell you now, that her crime was torture? It wasn’t clear to me if she starved just one or 3 of the total number of her children, prior to this 4th child to be delivered.
After we cleaned up everything and she was sent to the hospital, my co-workers and I were trying to find some sense out of all of this pregnancy. We had a big question brought up.
“Why conceive and bring another child if she was not capable of loving her previous children?”
I was not sure if she had drug habits that would make her mental reasoning affected. Perhaps, she had an underlying mental illness, not diagnosed yet. There could be a lot of reasons. But the bottom line is….it was her children who suffered the most. They were born yet despised.
Love….the basis of life…Without it, life seems to have no meaning. Love…Which is the greatest attribute of our One and Only God. Love…came down from heaven…Born of a woman. Who lived among us and suffered the most. Jesus…Who suffered through his trials and tortures and died by crucifixion. He had a horrible physical suffering. And spiritual suffering. [2 Corinthians 5:21 ~ “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”] The torture Jesus had to endure just depicted how hateful and full of rage sinful men were toward a holy God.
Jesus was born yet some of us still don’t believe what he had done. Jesus came to tell us about a Father's love. Yet, he was despised by men. Because of our sins, we are not fully capable of loving and believing in the Creator Who came and gave Himself to pay the ultimate price for our sins. So we may live…
Romans 5:8 ~ “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
By birth he came and like a “thief in the night”, Jesus will come again. Destruction will come suddenly like the labor pains of a pregnant woman. [1 Thessalonians 5:2-4 ~ “for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief.”]
We all adore that face on the manger. But there will come a time that there’s a side of Jesus that we will not like to see:
