OUR DAILY BREAD : KEEP CLIMBING!

[cimi]

MONDAY May 9, 2016


Keep Climbing!
Read: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12 | Bible in a Year: 2 Kings 7–9; John 1:1-28

Encourage one another daily. Hebrews 3:13

Richard needed a push, and he got one. He was rock climbing with his friend Kevin who was the belayer (the one who secures the rope). Exhausted and ready to quit, Richard asked Kevin to lower him to the ground. But Kevin urged him on, saying he had come too far to quit. Dangling in midair, Richard decided to keep trying. Amazingly, he was able to reconnect with the rock and complete the climb because of his friend’s encouragement.

In the early church, followers of Jesus encouraged one another to continue to follow their Lord and to show compassion. In a culture riddled with immorality, they passionately appealed to one another to live pure lives (Rom. 12:1; 1 Thess. 4:1). Believers encouraged one another daily, as God prompted them to do so (Acts 13:15). They urged each other to intercede for the body (Rom. 15:30), to help people stay connected to the church (Heb. 10:25), and to love more and more (1 Thess. 4:10).

Through His death and resurrection, Jesus has connected us to one another. Therefore, we have the responsibility and privilege with God’s enablement to encourage fellow believers to finish the climb of trusting and obeying Him.

__ BY Marvin Williams

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**When was the last time you needed to urge someone to keep following Jesus? Who has encouraged you or stirred you to pursue holiness, to keep praying, or to enlarge your love for Jesus and others?

**TODAY’S BIBLE READING __ 1 THESSALONIANS 4:1-12**

1 As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed
you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are
living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to
do this mor and more. 2 For you know what instructions
we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

2 It is God’s will that you should b sanctified: that you should
avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to
control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not
in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; 6 and
that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of
a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit
such sins, as we told you and warned you before. 7 For God
did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore,
anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human
being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit.

9 Now about your love for one another we do not neeed to write
to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each
otehr. 10 And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout
Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more
and more, 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life:
You should mind your own business and work with your hands,
just as we told you, 12 So that your daily life may win the respect
of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.