Advent Season… More Than a Story

Advent Season… More Than a Story

Today’s Passage: 1 Thessalonians 2:1-12

You know how badly we had been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Yet our God gave us the courage to declare his Good News to you boldly, in spite of great opposition. So you can see we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives or trickery. (Vs. 2-3)

Words of Devotion from Scripture

Years ago a faithful and insightful minister in a church assembled a ladder and climbed it all the way to the ceiling of the sanctuary, just behind where the loud speakers hang. There on the backside of those speakers, where only those on the platform could see, he posted a simple reminder that reads, “Smile.”

You see, that minister knew something very important about the Gospel. Good News is best communicated with a smile.

No one really hears the Good News when it’s gruffly dictated from a sour puss. Wonderful words of Grace, Forgiveness and Restoration always seem forced and inauthentic when they come from a deeply wounded, overcritical, and bitter soul.

There is so much more to communicating the Gospel than getting the facts right. The Gospel is a story that’s intended to be lived out. It’s a narrative that is punctuated by our attitudes, animated by our behavior, and colored by our involvement in the lives of others. In a word; it’s incarnation.

Paul had experienced enough persecution and hard times to make anyone bitter, critical, and jaded. Yet proclaiming the Good News with a chip on your shoulder is inconsistent with a life that’s been redeemed. So Paul came with the Gospel gently, like one who loves and cares for his own children. Indeed, he loved those to whom he came so much that he not only shared the Good News with them, but he also shared his life with them.

The Gospel is more than a story to be told. It’s good news to be embodied. When God was ready to share his Good News with us he didn't simply write an e-mail or tell a story. Instead, He sent Jesus. How will we share the Good News this season? How will we tell the story? How will we live the Gospel?

PRAYER: Grant unto us, Heavenly Father, the very mind of Christ that we should love our world enough to share with it not only the Gospel of our Lord Jesus, but our very lives in righteousness and holiness, we pray to your honor and glory – Amen.