Continuing our reading of I Thessalonians:

TAKE IT TO HEART!  (Think about what our focus verse for this week says to you today.  Maybe you'll learn the verse by memory.  Take it to heart and it will become part of YOU!)

            "...urging and encouraging you and pleading that you live a life worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory."  I Thessalonians 2:12

PUT IT IN CONTEXT: I Thessalonians, Chapter 2, Verses 10-16. : Our heart verse is part of Paul's exhortation (urging, encouraging, pleading) to the church at Thessalonica.

            "You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was to you believers.  As you know, we dealt with each one of you as a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you live a life worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.

            "We have reason to thank God continually because, when we handed on God's message you accepted it, not as the word of men, but as what it truly is, the very word of God at work in you who are believers.."  I Thessalonians 2:10-13

Paul commends the Thessalonians  for following the example of other Christians although they have been persecuted for doing so.

Think about it; believe it; practice it:

Read again the first sections of I Thessalonians (1:2-2:16).  Consider the verbs that describe our relationship with God. 

God in Christ

          loves us 

         chooses us 

              "For we know, brothers & sisters,

                beloved of God, 

                that he has chosen you."  

                        I Thessalonians 1:4

          rescues us

         approves us

         and entrusts us with his message

                 "approved by God to be entrusted

                  with the gospel. 

                  We are not trying to please men

                   but God who tests our hearts." 

                            I Thessalonians 2:4

            tests our hearts

            is our witness

            call us into his kingdom and glory

            we call Jesus Christ, our LORD,

            our actions are motivated by

                   faith, hope, and love

            we are imitators of the Lord

                   (and of Paul and of

                   churches in Jerusalem)

            we receive the message with power,

                    with joy given

                          by the Holy Spirit

            we become an example,

                    a model for others to imitate

            we serve the living and true God

           and wait for his Son's return

            we try to please God,

                    not other people

            we are witnesses

            Our lives are  holy/pure, righteous/upright, and blameless