For now, we live if you are standing fast in the Lord.
– 1 Thessalonians 3:8
Yes, this is very similar language to what we read and prayed about in 1 Thessalonians 2:19–20. There Paul was saying, I can’t wait for Jesus to come back and on that day. I want your lives to be the fruit of my life. You are my hope and glory and joy. Well now he says in 1 Thessalonians 3, “I live if you are standing fast in the Lord”. The purpose of my life is to help you stand fast in the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 3:8 Shows Us Paul’s Love for His Disciples
This is the heart of disciple-making. This is the practical outworking of Matthew 28:19. In Paul’s life and his relationship with these Thessalonian Christians, what does it mean to make disciples? It means to live, to help other people stand and experience life in the Lord. And not just to come to know Christ, but to persevere in Christ, to grow in Christ.
That’s what it means to make disciples, to go lead people to Jesus. Lead them to be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, teach them to obey everything Christ is commanded so that they are standing fast in the Lord. So I would just ask the question for all of us today. Who are you living to see standing fast in the Lord? Who would you say, I live if you are standing fast in the Lord and my whole life is about helping you stand fast and the Lord.
There should be people around us that we are living like that for. In fact, there’s a sense in which this is the Christian life and approach to everyone around us. Certainly the people closest to us, we want to live in such a way that we’re helping them know Christ and grow in Christ and stand firm in Christ.
1 Thessalonians 3:8 Encourages Us to Give Our Lives for the Mission
But that’s also true for people, not just in our homes or our friends or in the church, but certainly that’s true for people we work with or we go to school with or we live around, we interact with on sports teams or out at ball fields or in other hobbies that we live to help others stand in Jesus, to come to know Jesus and then to walk with Jesus. Let this first, 1 Thessalonians 3:8, transform your perspective on your life today. Live today to help other people stand fast in the Lord.
God, help us to live for this. Help us to love others enough to lay down our lives, to lead them to you and to help them grow in you. God, I pray this, I think about my own life, over my wife and my kids. Please help me to live, love, serve them today in such a way that they are standing fast in the Lord. Help me to pray for them toward that end.
This Verse Encourages Us to Make the Best Use of Time
Serve them, encourage them toward that end. Help them toward that end. I pray the same for I just think of numerous other people I’ll interact with today. Help me in every interaction to point others to you. We pray that in all of our lives, it would help us to be intentional about helping others stand firm in the Lord. When we’re around brothers and sisters in Christ, to build them up in Christ, to help them stand fast amidst whatever they’re walking through.
And when we’re around nonbelievers today, people who don’t have a relationship with you. God, help us, as we prayed in Colossians 4, make the most best use of the time to point them to you and to be salt and light in such a way that they come to know you as their Father in heaven. God, help us to live to see people come to know you as Lord and stand fast in you as Lord. And God, we pray this for people we don’t even know.
Prayer for the Bengkulu People
Among the Bengkulu people today… The Bengkulu people of Indonesia on the island of Sumatra, 69,000 of them, a handful of followers of Jesus. God, we pray that you would help our brothers and sisters there to stand fast firm in you. We pray that you would use our prayers right now to strengthen them. God, please supply all their needs according to the riches of glory in Christ Jesus. God, we pray for their good in every way, for their wisdom, for their strength, for their peace, for their help.
And God, we pray for your power on them, for the spread of the gospel to more Bengkulu people of Indonesia. That more might stand firm in you. That more might come to know you as Lord and walk with you as Lord and share you as Lord with others around them. God, we live for this, we pray for this, for the sake of people far from us, and for the sake of people right around us that we will interact with today. Help us to live to see others stand fast in you. We pray this according to your Word in 1 Thessalonians 3:8. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
