Acting Like People of Hope

DAY TWENTY SEVEN: Monday, November 10, 2008

Read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

"My friends, we want you to understand how it will be for those followers who have already died. Then you won't grive over them and be like people who don't have any hope." 1 Thessalonians 4:13 (CEV)


Somone was spreading rumors around the First Century church of Thessalonica in Greece. Not complaints about how much time the pastor spent playing golf, but false teaching about the return of Christ and life after death.

Paul the apostle wrote to clear up the misunderstandings that had been propogated. Jesus is coming again! He will bring back with Him the souls of all His followers who died previous to His return. When Christ returns, anyone alive who is committed to Him by faith will meet Him in the air - body and soul - and the bodies of previously deceased Christ followers will be reunited with their souls! What a victory celebration that will bring about! What a reunion!

When First Thessalonians was written the pagan world did not believe in the hope of life after death. Its no wonder their philosophers wrote: "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die." But God's message to the Christ followers at Thessalonica on the other hand was one of moral purity, upright ethics, and love toward God and others.

That is what hope does. It makes us better citizens of this world who are also citizens of the world to come! We should not live like people who have no hope - aimless, desperate and without a moral compass.

Action step for today: Take a moral inventory of your life - what you're doing right or wrong - and make any needed changes.