To Encourage You

1 Thessalonians 1:8 “The word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and in Achaia.”

Tests of true faith: the Bible is full of them, for God would not have us to be self-deceived about who we really are. Often you hear people talk about how they are trying to “find themselves,” “know who they are,” or “be who they are.” I’m not real sure what these terms mean to those who say them, but the Bible is clear that we need to  “know who we are” when it comes to the one and only true faith.

The Bible is clear in its verdict that there are two types of people on the earth. It uses various terms for them, e.g., sheep and goats, those on the narrow way and those on the broad way, wise and foolish, believer and unbeliever. In each and every instance it is referring to the same thing; there are some people in the world who know Christ and have put their faith in Him, and there are those who don’t know Him and have no faith in Him at all. There are only two ways. However, the Bible is also clear that many are deceived about which way they are on, so to help us we are given many tests.

In the verse above, Paul is describing the true believers in the church at Thessalonica. One of the ways he describes them, i.e., one of the ways they have passed the test of true faith, is that “the word of the Lord sounded forth” from them. You see, true faith doesn’t keep that faith to itself. It’s like the Samaritan woman at the well who after she had met Jesus and realized who He was, couldn’t keep the truth to herself. Of her we are told “Many Samaritans from that town believed in Him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me all that I ever did’” (John 4:39). Then there was the prophetess Anna, who, after Jesus was born, “began to give thanks to God and to speak of Him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem” (Luke 2:38).

Jesus told us that it is “of the abundance of the heart that (the) mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). In other words, if the heart is full of the joy of the Lord, we will talk about Him, and if the heart is full of other things, it is other things about which we will most often speak.

So, how’s your language? What do you talk about? Have you told anyone about Jesus lately? Have you ever told anyone about Him? While it is true that there are many false teachers that do speak about Jesus, they do it for the wrong motives, i.e., to draw attention to themselves or to make money from the gospel. However, that fact should not deter a true believer from speaking about their Lord. In fact, if Christ is truly dwelling within us, one of the strongest desires of our heart will be to tell others about Him. It’s not easy sometimes, and we definitely need the boldness that only the Holy Spirit can give to tell the good news to those who haven’t heard it, but it will nevertheless be our desire if we truly know the Savior of the world. That was the case with the Thessalonian church, and it will be our case as well, if we, like them, possess the true faith.

May God help us to test ourselves in this matter, to see whether we are in the faith, and may God give the true believers the boldness to share that faith to “preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15) as the One we claim to follow has commanded us