Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,  so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.

1 Thessalonians 4:9-12

We often talk of the Christian life as a journey. Sometimes we fall or stumble, but the grace of God compels us to get up and take another step.

In today’s passage, Paul encourages the church by commending their love for each other and for the believers all around as they have “taught by God.” And he wants them to take another step and grow in their brotherly love “more and more.” He urges them to give us a picture of someone pleading. Maybe he is cheering them on as he coaches them as they follow Christ.

At the end of the passage, he describes how we should live with those outside the faith – “make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,  so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.”

Now for some questions particular to me…

• Am I growing in my faith? 
• Am I bearing fruit? 
• Does anyone in my life notice? 
• What about people who are on the outside looking in on my life? 
• Am I living “properly before outsiders?”

What questions would you ask yourself?