1 Thessalonians 1:2-8 We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; 3 remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father; 4 knowing, brethren beloved of God, your election, 5 how that our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance; even as ye know what manner of men we showed ourselves toward you for your sake. 6 And ye became imitators of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit; 7 so that ye became an ensample to all that believe in Macedonia and in Achaia. 8 For from you hath sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God-ward is gone forth; so that we need not to speak anything.
As long as the matter of God's word doesn't reach our hearts in the way that we can totally identify ourselves with it, we accept it as our matter and change our lives according to it, we cannot say we fully understand it.
One of the topics that people accept very slowly to their hearts is the message that God Himself is not going to bring the message of reconciliation to people. We can see very clearly that this is what he ordered His Church to do - to hold the ministry of reconciliation and to bring the gospel to other people. We can say that this ministry is the pivotal ministry of those he gave us.
We are the bearers of gospel, which assumes that really everything that our motivation is focused on, our thinking, our deads, and our lives as whole correspond the God's visions and goals. We live for the God's kingdom and this is the goal of our lives. And also we can perceive the difference between the God's kingdom and the world.
Apostle Paul mentions this in his letter to Thessalonians: how important and useful for gospel the way of life and ministry of Thessalonians was, as an example for others in following Christ.
However, this task (it is really a task) is very commonly felt not to be too binding for a church. But it is binding! God has charged us with such a task. And we are going to account for fulfilling this task.
We need to perceive the way in which we differ from other people the right way, the difference, how God has changed us in viewing the life and relationship with Him. In other words, we should be ready to live and to bear a ministry of reconciliation, because we know how valuable it is. It should be both binding and joyful. Our motivation should be the love towards the person we are going to preach and we are trying to pass them the best we have.
The opposite of this way of life is a way in compromise or even in concordance with the world. Today, many churches are trying to be liked by the world, which is very bad. The church has to be cleaned and seek and find what God thinks and says about these things in His word and behave like that. And make a solid line between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness.
