Standing Firm Together (1 Thessalonians 3:8)
For now we live, if you are standing fast in the Lord.
– 1 Thessalonians 3:8
Is that not an amazing verse?
Let me read it again. Just think about this statement from Paul to these Christians in Thessalonica: For now we live if you are standing fast in the Lord.
It’s like Paul is saying, I find my life in seeing you stand fast, stand firm in Jesus. I live for this.
Just think about what your life would look like today—what my life would look like today—if we lived for this purpose: to help people around us stand fast, grow closer to God, and stand strong, firm, and steadfast in Jesus.
That’s a good way to live today.
Just look at the people around you right now, or think about the people you’ll be around today. Or, if you’re listening at night, think about tomorrow.
Ask yourself: What would I do if my purpose today were to help other people stand fast in you?
How would that affect your prayer life? Surely you’d be praying continually for others. If you were living to see them stand firm in the Lord, it would change your conversations. It would change your approach to every interaction.
If the person with you is a follower of Jesus, you’d look for ways to encourage them, to build them up in faith.
If the person is not a follower of Jesus, you’d look for opportunities to point them to Jesus, to share His love, to help them stand for the first time in the Lord.
How much would our interactions, relationships, communication, the words we say, send, and post—everything—change if we lived to see others standing fast in the Lord on a daily basis?
Prayer
God, help us to live for this. Help us live for the sake of others around us today—to stand fast in you.
We pray over every single person we’re planning to see today, and every person we don’t yet realize we’ll meet. We pray that our interaction with them would lead to their good, that followers of Jesus would stand more fast in you because of our interaction.
We pray for people we interact with today who are not followers of Jesus. Help us be salt and light in their lives, to encourage them, to point them to you and your love for them. Help us live today to lead others to stand for the first time in you, and those who know you to stand fast in you.
We know that people we see today will be struggling in their faith in different ways. Help us help them stand fast in you.
And we pray this for people we don’t even know, whom we won’t meet today. We pray for the Paliya people of Bangladesh—for over 100,000 men, women, and children. We intercede for them. We pray that they would come to know you as Lord and Savior. May it be so. Hear our prayers, hear our cries for the Paliya people. Bring them to stand in you, to find life in you.
Help us find our lives in helping others experience life in you.
We pray this straight from your Word in 1 Thessalonians 3:8. In Jesus’ name, amen.
