“And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all, even as we do toward you…Furthermore then we beseech you, brethren, and exhort you by the Lord Jesus, that as you have received of us how you ought to walk and to please God, so you would abound more and more” (1 Thess 3:12, 4:1).
The honor of the ministry is helping others; it is joy for every child of God to serve in the kingdom. We give ourselves that others may believe unto the end, not merely PREACHING the gospel but discipling, praying for, and caring for saints until they make it home. Stories of “evangelists” who love preaching but not people, so they were called to “evangelism” rather than pastoring, are wrong. All biblical preaching has a love for God and man, expressed in desire to see people persevere. We do what we can to help in prayer, support, preaching, and example. We live that they know God until they leave this world for glory, having conquered Satan and endured to the end - “To the end he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints“(1 Thess 3:13).
The gospel is FRUIT producing - producing men and women that seek Christ’s fruit in others, not satisfied with ourselves, but desiring to see others make it too - “Night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith“ (1 Thess 3:10). This is love, and this is the cup that we’re to drink, the fountain of life: not only chosen, but CHOSEN to serve people with the gospel, enduringly and perseveringly, loving to the cost of ourselves that others may live - “And he said, The God of our fathers has chosen you, that you should know his will, and see that Just One, and should hear the voice of his mouth. For you shall be His witness unto all men of what you have seen and heard“ (Acts 22:14-15). This spirit of Christ is in the believer. Let it arise. Let the new man free to live.
John G. Paton, commenting on his father’s influence in his life, which brought him to Christ and then the mission field of New Hebride Islands, wrote, “The "closet" was a very small apartment betwixt the other two, having room only for a bed, a little table and a chair, with a diminutive window shedding diminutive light on the scene. This was the Sanctuary of that cottage home. Thither daily, and oftentimes a day, generally after each meal, we saw our father retire, and "shut to the door"; and we children got to understand by a sort of spiritual instinct (for the thing was too sacred to be talked about) that prayers were being poured out there for us, as of old by the High Priest within the veil in the Most Holy Place. We occasionally heard the pathetic echoes of a trembling voice pleading as if for life, and we learned to slip out and in past that door on tiptoe, not to disturb the holy colloquy… Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable catastrophe to be swept out of memory, or blotted from my understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and shut itself up once again in that Sanctuary Closet, and, hearing still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt with the victorious appeal, "He walked with God, why may not I?"
You too are created to manifest God, to be like Him, to love. Be who you are and devote yourself to riches eternal, salvation of sinners, and the higher things of life - “Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you“ (1 Thess 3:11). Distractions are every where, and the Lord is our power to inch by inch, movement upward by movement upward, glorify the God of glory by living like His Son, to save sinners, honor His name, and do good to people because God is great to us.
