Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
Have you had a time where you're wrapping up a text or an email to somebody, and you want to capture all the last minute reminders? For example, maybe you're sending a text or an email to someone and saying, okay, don't forget to brush your teeth and floss and make sure you make your bed every morning. And if you're going to spend a lot of time out in the sun, make sure you have sunblock on. You're trying to capture all of these last minute reminders.
I love the practicality of Scripture because Paul's writing this book to the churches in Thessalonica, and he's capturing all of these last minute things in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.
The God of Peace
In the context, that's what I love about Scripture, because if you look closer at what Scripture is saying, I love that Paul taps into saying, May the God of peace.... In the Hebrew language, there are over seventy different Hebrew names for God. Capture this—the Hebrew name for God of peace is Jehovah Shalom.
If you look at it, it's saying, May the God of peace.... You would think he would say, make you safe, make you comfortable, some other descriptive word going with the God of peace. But he says, May the God of peace make you holy in every way. There's so many different names of God he could have used about holiness, but he chooses the word peace, which I find very interesting.
The Context of Peace vs. Holiness
In the first part of this chapter, we see the context of Paul writing to this church, saying the Lord's return will come unexpectedly like a thief in the night when people are saying how everything is peaceful and secure. Here you have the world—He's talking about the end times—saying everything's peaceful and secure. Yet He's referring later on to the God of peace making you holy.
You'll have the world saying, all right, everything's peaceful and secure. A lot of times that comes with control or something else that's now trying to dictate what we do. But that's the beauty of what God brings. I'd love for you to grab this—what is he saying? The God of peace makes you holy.
Demonstrating Him
The world will say that peace, security, and safety come from us controlling outward things. But the God of peace says, I'm calling you to holiness—no matter what's going on in the world around you, even if people treat you badly and we try and control the environment, even if the environment is not controlled, no matter how people treat you—because we know that there are some awful things going on in the world.
The God of peace calls us to holiness so that no matter what's going on, we can behave in a way that's holy, because the peace of God comes from within. It's not saying we feel peace, security, and safety because we're controlling the outward and external things of this world. It's God saying, I want to call you to holiness, because when you're holy, you will demonstrate Him—the God of peace—to those around you, no matter how they treat you.
The Challenge of Holy Living
That's very hard to do. I would encourage you today—I'm sure we all have someone who is a thorn in your side. They do not treat you nicely. It is not a peaceful situation. I would ask that you allow the God of peace to call you to holiness, so that His Spirit now is what overflows from you into those around you, to behave in a way that is not normally how you would behave.
That's why Paul goes on to say in this verse, May your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless. Because when we're doing that, even those that are not treating us well have nothing to blame us for, except for the outpouring of God's peace and love to those that we may not deem deserve it, because that's what God calls us to.
May you experience the peace of God outpouring and overflowing into those around you today as He calls us to holiness.
