October 17, 2021 -- II Thessalonians 2:16-17 -- Drenched in His overflowing blessings

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Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.
II Thessalonians 2:16-17 ESV

When reading the New Testament letters you can’t help but notice how they are filled with blessings conferred from our God to His people. In this letter, Paul, Silvanus and Timothy are writing the believers in Thessalonica. The letter touches on the might of God and the judgment that is coming and the suffering Christians will endure before Jesus returns. And the letter, brief as it is, overflows with the blessings of God directed to His people.

Note the assurance of God’s great love for us. No matter our circumstances, His love is unshakeable. It is the Lord Jesus and our Father Who love us and give us eternal comfort. Perhaps you caught the reference and implication of the word comfort. Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as the Comforter (see John 14, 15 and 16  where Jesus constantly names the Holy Spirit the Helper, or as many translations have it, the Comforter).

Hope is a gift of God’s grace. It is not a misguided hope, like “I hope the Leafs will win the Stanley Cup the next two years in a row”. It is a sure and certain hope, fixed on Jesus Christ, the Author and Perfecter of all true believing. This hope is a gift of His grace. It is the Spirit Who stirs up this sure hope in us so that we walk with God and trust Him, seeing our circumstances with the eyes of faith and confident believing.

Notice, from this place of being fortified by God our Father and God the Lord Jesus Who is our rescue story, we are able to work for the kingdom of God, we speak with boldness the glories of our High King in heaven. This is work which flows from us because the blessing of God is on us. We are, in and of ourselves, timid and small creatures. God chooses the foolish things of the world, the weak things and by His love, eternal comfort and good hope, fashions us to be His soldiers, an army on our knees, united in prayer and thanksgiving who rise in Jesus Christ as victors over our own sinfulness and the victors over the world and the devil. It is Jesus Who seals His victory in us, by His Spirit to the glory of our Father in heaven—He Who has given us all this through His great love and grace.

Thank You, Father in heaven, for the rich and extravagant blessings which You have poured out on us in Jesus Christ. By the Spirit's presence, the Comforter sealed in us by Your grace, we recognize we are guarded in Your love. By the Spirit's work in us, we are taught in righteousness and grow in grace. Triune God, from this place of overflowing blessedness, may we rise and praise You and serve You in all we do and say. In Jesus' Name we pray this. Amen.

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