Not ceasing

Not ceasing

Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father. (1 Thessalonians 1:3)

For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. (1 Thessalonians 2:13)

Pray without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days. (Daniel 6:10)

We will remember today as the day when so much of our normal lives stopped. It is a disturbing time, filled with uncertainty. But when there is uncertainty, that’s the time to reflect on things which encourage us. Paul wrote his very first letter to new believers and taught them, by example, about things which would never stop:

• He never stopped remembering the Thessalonians’ faith, love and hope. It put a joy in his heart to think of all that God had done in their lives.

• He never stopped being so thankful for the Word of God that the Thessalonians had received and continued to rest upon and live by.

• He encouraged them to never stop approaching the throne of Grace in prayer and thankfulness.

Daniel had learned these things hundreds of years before (see Daniel 6). When his life was in danger, he never for a moment considered stopping praying to his God as he had done all his life. And where did he pray? In his home, which was a powerhouse of prayer. He prayed with his windows opened to Jerusalem. With a joyful hope in his heart, he knelt down in humility to pray, and with a permanent expression of thankfulness upon his lips and in his heart. This didn’t stop his being cast into a den of lions, but it did stop the mouths of lions.

As we are shut up in our homes, may they not become comfortable prisons, but places of great blessing. We live in testing circumstances, but let us view them not as constraints but opportunities for our faith to be increased. We have the hope of Christ’s return. This should not be a vague, distant thing, but a vivid bright star which has a present, purifying effect upon our lives. And above all may we live in the wonder of the love of God which never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8).