Thursday, February 26, 2026
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: 1 Thessalonians 1
Key Verse
1 Thessalonians 1:6 — “And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost.”
Devotional Thought
What would it look like if your faith were the first thing people heard about you? Not your opinions, not your complaints, not your politics or your taste in music — but your faith in God, sounding out from you the way a bell sounds out over a quiet town. That is what Paul says happened with the believers in Thessalonica. In a few short months, the gospel had so taken hold of them that word of their conversion traveled down the trade roads of Macedonia and Achaia without any apostle needing to advertise it. “From you sounded out the word of the Lord,” Paul writes, “so that we need not to speak any thing.” Their lives had become the message.
Notice how this came about. Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy did not arrive with mere words. The gospel came “in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance,” and the missionaries’ own conduct matched their message — “ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake.” The Thessalonians, in turn, received the word “in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost.” Here in late February, when winter has worn long and the first hints of spring still feel far off, that phrase is worth sitting with. Joy and affliction are not opposites in the Christian life; the Holy Spirit grows joy in hard soil. These were ordinary people — craftsmen, slaves, women, men — who turned from idols “to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven.” Their hope was not in circumstances improving but in a Person returning.
Paul’s prayer for them is a model for us: he gives thanks, remembers their “work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope,” and names them “brethren beloved.” Faith that works, love that labours, hope that endures — three marks of a genuine church, and three things worth asking God to grow in us today. The season of Lent begins this week for many believers, a season of self-examination and turning. The Thessalonians show us what turning looks like: away from whatever we have been serving, and toward the living and true God, with waiting as an act of hope.
So the question this passage presses on us is not whether we can explain the gospel cleverly, but whether our lives make it audible. A quiet, faithful, hopeful life in an ordinary town can carry further than we know.
Reflection
- If someone described your life this week the way Paul described the Thessalonians, what would they say you had “turned to” and what you had turned from?
- Where is God asking you to wait in hope right now, and what would “patience of hope” look like in that waiting?
Prayer
Our Father, we thank You for the gospel that came to us not in word only but in power and in the Holy Ghost. Thank You for those who first spoke Your word to us, and for the living and true God to whom we have turned. Grow in us the work of faith, the labour of love, and the patience of hope. Let our lives sound out Your word in the places where we live and work, and let our waiting for Your Son from heaven be joyful and steady. Keep us faithful until He comes, in whose name we pray. Amen.