| Saturday, December 5, 2009
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 9How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? 10Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith. 11Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. 12And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. 13And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
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John Wesley uses this passage to conclude his sermon On the Omnipresence of God:
In order to attain these glorious ends, spare no pains to preserve always a deep, a continual, a lively, and a joyful sense of his gracious presence. Never forget his comprehensive word to the great father of the faithful: “I am the Almighty” (rather the All-sufficient) “God; walk before me, and be thou perfect!” Cheerfully expect that He, before whom you stand, will ever guide you with his eye, will support you by his guardian hand, will keep you from all evil, and, “when you have suffered a while, will make you perfect [whole/complete/mature], will establish, strengthen, and settle you,” and then; “preserve you unblamable unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!” We have advent work to do to as we move toward “glorious ends”. Key among our workings is that difficult and tricky work of recognizing and preserving a deep continual lively joyful sense of G*D’s gracious presence.
We often speak of a sixth sense. This is a sixth sense we would do well to develop - a sense of being in the midst of grace.
The traditional verses around this refrain could use some updating and moving away from blood atonement images. An Advent exercise would be to write some new verses that better reflect constantly being in G*D’s gracious presence. |
