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1 Thessalonians Chapter 1
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1Th 1:1 Paul, and Silvanus, and Timothy, unto the church of
the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord
Jesus Christ: Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our
Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I don't understand why so many still fight against the
trinity or the deity of Jesus Christ. I disagree with the
making of creeds, the union of church and state and many
things that was decreed during the making of the Nicene
creed, but it is clear from the scriptures that there is a
Father, there is a Son and there is a Holy Spirit. I don't
understand everything about the trinity but I do know from
scripture itself that there are three that are one in unity
and purpose. If we teach a doctrine that leaves out anyone
of the three, we are missing all God has for us.
We need all that God gives us. We need the Father of course,
because from Him proceeds all the rest. To be saved from
sin, we need the Son who died for our sins and we also need
the most neglected of all, the Holy Spirit. To neglect this
part of God's gift is to deny ourselves of the power to even
present the gospel that will save men's souls.
What happened during the middle ages to cause people to
hate, kill, burn others at the stake and other things that
happened even in the name of Jesus? If we study those times,
they had somehow lost the Holy Spirit. They just had a
religion of doctrines and creeds that long since left the
teachings of the original Holy bible.
They had a form of godliness on the surface for man to see
in rituals, sacraments, and ordinances but there was no real
power to change lives and cause the love of God to enter
into the hearts of believers. This comes by the Holy Spirit.
A church without the Holy Spirit is a dead church.
Here we have the faithful apostle Paul writing another great
letter to the church in Thessalonica.
1Th 1:2 We give thanks to God always for you all, making
mention of you in our prayers;
Do we thank God for all our brothers and sisters in Christ
even in other places? Do we pray for them and desire to them
to be successful in the work of the God? One sign of a true
believer is the love they have for fellow believers even
when another believer disagrees with them on some point of
doctrine. We don't have to compromise on important doctrines
of the faith but we must be patient and love those who
disagree with our doctrine. We must be careful to avoid
false accusations.
The church of today may not kill physically but they will
kill in other ways. I am Pentecostal and I grieve so much
when I go on the Internet and see what the non- Pentecostals
say about us because we believe in the gifts of the Sprit
and especially the gift of tongues. To strengthen their
cause they look at the prosperity preachers, and the
accesses they heard through rumors and the words of
witnesses. The bible says ye shall know them by their fruits
but they only see those that are out front so to speak. They
do not see all of us. If a Baptist commits adultery, do we
blame the all the Baptist churches? There are many
Pentecostal believers that do not agree with the prosperity
doctrine. I do not know what went on at Pensacola or Toronto
but the majority of Pentecostal believers have never been
there. As for holiness. There are still many Pentecostal
believers that believe in living in holiness. To top it all
there are still some of us that still sing the old hymns of
the church. I don't know if choreographic dancing is wrong
but most of our churches do not have that and have no desire
to have that. It may be okay to sing choruses over and over
but some of us do not do that either. We do not all do the
same things and what you see on television does not
represent most of us. If you must fault us, use the
scriptures against our doctrine. I don't think you will find
anything in scripture though especially if you read the book
of Acts. If one studies the scripture carefully without just
taking one verse out of context, you will not find fault
with Pentecostal doctrine. Even Paul's chapter on the use of
tongues ends the chapter by saying that we should never
forbid any to speak with tongues. Tongues are part the Holy
Spirit. They are gifts from God. I refuse to apologize for
this gift or even refer to it as a lesser gift. How can
anything from God be less than something else?
1Th 1:3 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and
labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus
Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;
We should rejoice in the faithfulness of other believers and
never be envious. We should share in their burdens and never
harden our hearts toward them.
1Th 1:4 Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.
Election means chosen of God. Like God chose Abraham, God
chose Israel to become the means by which He sent His Son
into the world. He chose Paul to preach the gospel to the
Gentiles. When we receive the gospel, we also become part of
God's elect. This never means an exclusive group apart from
everyone else. This means that we are called according to
His purpose to receive and preach the gospel. All who
believe becomes part of this elect group. It is not closed
to anyone. It is only closed to those who refuse to receive
the gospel and refuse to believe the gospel. I would say
that it is closed only to those who have already refused and
are dead physically. As long as any group of people are
still alive upon the face of the earth, they still can
become part of the elect of God.
If this election was only for certain people and we had no
way of knowing for sure who those people where, why even
preach the gospel and we know from the words of Jesus
Himself that we are commanded to take the gospel to the
entire world.
Some believe God's elect is the church and no longer Israel.
That is false because there are thousands of Jews that are
even now receiving the gospel. Ever hear of Messianic Jews?
That is Jews who have received the Messiah. They may call
themselves a congregation instead of using the word church
but they are just as much part of the elect as those that
call themselves by the name of church.
The elect are simply those that believe in Jesus and have
trusted in Him to save them of their sins. In other words,
they have been "born again" by God's spirit and have been
"baptized into the body of Christ" by the same Holy Spirit.
We are elect or chosen because God chose us but I believe
God has chosen all to become that elect. If any refuse then
naturally they are not part of the elect of God but it is by
their own choice. I realize that God knows ahead of time who
will be saved and who will refuse but the opportunity is for
all.
The original elect of God was of course Israel. They were
the elect of God as a nation to bring forth the savior who
was to save us from sins. The Gentile believers in Jesus,
become part of the elect when they receive Jesus Christ.
Unbelieving Jews are cut off because of unbelief but the
scriptures are clear in the fact that they will again become
the elect of God in latter days.
Proof:
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as
some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward,
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance.
John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power
to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his
name:
Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Joh 3:17 For God sent not his Son into the
world to condemn the world; but that the world through him
might be saved.
I don't get from the above scriptures any thought of anyone
being predestined to be lost and have no chance of
salvation.
1Th 1:5 For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but
also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance;
as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your
sake.
1Th 1:6 And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord,
having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the
Holy Ghost:
The Holy Spirit brings joy. He is the one Jesus sent to us
when He went back to the Father.
1Th 1:7 So that ye were examples to all that believe in
Macedonia and Achaia.
1Th 1:8 For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not
only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your
faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to
speak any thing.
1Th 1:9 For they themselves show of us what manner of
entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from
idols to serve the living and true God;
It takes the power of the Holy Spirit to convict of the sin
of idolatry. It takes power to have made these people who
once served idols into people that love the real true God.
True conversion is by the power of the Holy Spirit. If we
try to operate without Him, we are not going to see any
change in anyone's life. They may receive a religion we call
Christianity but they will not have any power to overcome
sin or love their neighbors, much less their enemies and
Jesus said to love our enemies. We can't do this if we do
not have the Holy Spirit. It is more than just a religion we
need. We need to be born again by the Holy Spirit by
repenting of sin and turning to Jesus Christ. After we are
changed by the spirit of God as a result of our faith in
Jesus Christ we then need to be fully baptized in the Holy
Spirit to be able to spread the gospel to others.
Water baptism shows outwardly what is taking place within
us. We become dead to sin and raised in the newness of life.
Water baptism shows that we are dead in Christ and alive
unto God. It shows that are sins are washed away by the shed
blood of Jesus Christ. The inner man or real us are baptized
into the body of Christ by our faith as we repent of sin and
believe in Jesus for salvation. The water itself has no
power to save the soul but the Holy Spirit that is present
is the living water that comes within us when we truly
repent of sin and trust in Jesus to save us from sin. The
Holy Spirit has the authority of Jesus who has the authority
of the Father to save anyone who believes in Jesus and the
work that He did on the cross when He died for our sins.
If we do not believe Jesus died for our sins and rose from
the dead and is now at the right hand of the Father in
heaven then of course there is no salvation for those who do
not believe this.
The first requirement for salvation is to believe those
simple basic facts. The second requirement is to believe to
the point of turning from sin and turning to Christ. Next
requirement is to obey the Holy Spirit as He leads us so
that we never want to return to the sin we were saved from.
It is sin that takes a soul to an eternal hell. A baby
doesn't need to be baptized as a baby because he or she has
not reached the age of accountability and has not sinned. If
a baby dies before he sins, he will not be lost so he
doesn't need to be baptized.
The one who is baptized in water must understand what is
occurring before it does any good. A baby would not
understand that he is being saved from sin and becoming a
child of God.
Sin takes us to hell and most of us over the age of
accountability has sinned at one time or another. This sin
will destroy our souls. That is why we need a savior. We
need the salvation that Jesus provided for us by dying for
our sins. To neglect His salvation is to be lost forever. If
we don't accept His death for our sins, we will have to die
for our own sins. The death for sins is hell forever.
1Th 1:10 And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised
from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath
to come.
Now our hope is His return. We should desire His return. He
is coming again and this should motivate us to spread the
gospel and occupy ourselves by doing His will until He
returns and He can say to us that we are good and faithful
servants and tell us to enter into the joy of the Lord
forever.
There is a lot of good things in the bible if we would just
study and seek understanding. You don't have to believe my
words, just read God's words.
1 Thessalonians 2
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