1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
“16Rejoice evermore. 17Pray without ceasing. 18In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” – English KJV
“16Πάντοτε χαίρετε, 17ἀδιαλείπτως προσεύχεσθε, 18ἐν παντὶ εὐχαριστεῖτε· τοῦτο γὰρ θέλημα Θεοῦ ἐν Χριστῷ ᾿Ιησοῦ εἰς ὑμᾶς.” – Greek Text
“16Pantote chairete, 17adialeiptos proseuchesthe, 18 en panti eucharisteite; touto gar thelema theou en Christo Iesou eis humas” – Greek Pronunciation
People often wonder how they are suppose to live a Christian life, especially during tough times. Here God’s Word reveals what we should do to live close to Him.
This verse specifically tells us three things that we MUST do.
1) “Rejoice evermore”
The word translated as rejoice is “chairete”. It means to be cheerful or calmly happy. This is not saying that you always have to be ecstatic; it is saying that you must be at least calmly happy.
We are commanded to rejoice in the good times, when things are going our way and when rejoicing is easy. However, we are also commanded to rejoice during the bad times, when things seem to fall apart around us and when rejoicing is difficult.
It is difficult to rejoice when things are going bad because we focus on our circumstances. Our circumstances are unstable, they change and if we focus on them our rejoicing will, at times, be nonexistent.
Now we know that the Bible tells us to rejoice evermore, therefore we must focus on something that is always good, rather than on our circumstances which are good at times and other times bad. God is always good. He is always in control. He is always on the throne and He will always love you. The only possible way to rejoice through good and bad circumstances is by focusing on God and the relationship we have with Him.
2) “Pray without ceasing”
Does this tell us to pray all day every day? No, this is a guideline to our prayer life.
We are not told to pray every second of every day, otherwise how would we eat or sleep or work?
What this Scripture is saying is that there are a few guidelines we must follow:
- Do not let circumstances govern your prayer life: Pray when things are going bad and pray when things are going good! There are too many people that only run to God when they need something. In reality we need to pray no matter what the circumstances may be. The purpose of prayer is not to ask God for things, it is to speak to God. This means that we must build a relationship through conversation. Through this relationship we are able to ask things of God, but that is not why we build the relationship. We must build the relationship because we want to be close to God and spend eternity with Him.
- Pray uninterruptedly: We are to focus on God when we pray to Him. When at all possible we must remove things that take our attention away from Him. Switch off the television (you do not need to see the score while you are busy talking to God, if it was that important He would tell you...)
- Pray throughout the day: Do not confine your conversation with the Lord to mornings and evenings. Speak to the Lord as often as possible. Instead of punching that cushion out of frustration, rather close your eyes for a moment and focus on God! Remember, it is difficult to stumble when you are on your knees!
It is important to speak to God often in order to grow the relationship you have with Him.
3) “In everything give thanks”
We all understand and agree with Paul’s commandment here; however, when it comes to our own lives we suddenly decide to paraphrase this part… We often find that people would rather interpret this section as saying “Sometimes give thanks” or “give thanks when we feel like it”. But this is not what Paul is saying!
What is Paul Saying? Paul is commanding us to give thanks IN EVERYTHING…
Notice that Paul tells us to give thanks IN all things, not FOR all things! Paul is not telling us to be thankful FOR illness or great loss, but rather to be thankful in the midst of such things! We must turn bad tidings into blessings by thanking God for everything He does for us!
Even in our darkest hour we must strive to find something that we can be thankful for… In our darkest hour, we can be thankful to Christ, for He entered His darkest hour willingly in order to set us free!
These three guidelines show us how to live our life as a Christian. By applying these guidelines we grow our relationship with Jesus Christ. It is this relationship that can bring us through tough times.
I would like to explain the importance of a good personal relationship with Jesus through an analogy I call the “Pillars of Dependency”:
Pillars of Dependency:
Everyone’s life is supported on pillars. These pillars stop our lives from collapsing. There are good pillars and bad pillars; pillars that improve our lives and pillars that make it less stable.
Examples of good pillars are:
1) Your relationship with God
2) Family*
3) Friends*
4) Health
*Friends and family are good pillars when there is a good relationship, when they are supportive and when you know that you can depend on them. If you cannot depend on your friends they are obviously not a pillar of dependency.
Examples of bad pillars are:
1) Alcohol
2) Drugs
3) Cults
4) Other addictions
These pillars are weak, unstable, cracked and crumbly at best. The more a person leans on one of these, the more unstable their life becomes.
There are also pillars that are neutral, which can become either good or bad, depending upon the circumstances around them. Examples of neutral pillars are:
1) Money (money becomes a bad pillar when it consumes you and becomes more important than God. Remember, money is not bad but the love thereof is.)
2) Your job / your work (Having a job is a good pillar, but when that job becomes your escape because you don’t want to face your family – or a similar reason – it becomes a bad pillar.)
The widths of the pillars are entirely up to you. You decide what is important in your life; you decide what you lean on for support.
If you decide that work or money is the most important thing in your life, then your life will collapse if that pillar is kicked from beneath you!
The most important pillar should be the “relationship with God” pillar.
The strategy of the enemy:
The enemy has the ability to kick these pillars out from underneath you. He can kick any pillar, except for one... Satan cannot touch the pillar called “Relationship with God” directly. You are the only one in all creation that can kick that pillar out.
The enemy knows this…so his strategy is to kick the other pillars out, hoping that your relationship with God is not strong enough to keep you stable (or that you will willingly kick it out yourself). This Scripture teaches us how to keep our life balanced when we only have that one pillar left. In the book of Job we read how Satan kicked all the pillars from beneath Job’s life, however, his relationship with God kept him stable when everything else fell apart.
We have to remember that no matter how broad our “relationship with God” pillar is, if the others get kicked out our life will still wobble. But if the pillar is strong enough we will not topple.
A common pillar of dependency among the unsaved is “Alcohol”. People who do not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ turn to things like this when their support beams fall. They turn to the pillars of “alcohol” and “drugs”, not knowing that these pillars are cracked and crumbly at best and that they cannot support your life at all.
God is the only one that we can ALWAYS depend on. Think about it… How many times has God failed you? How many times were things beyond His control? Never. Our relationship with God is the most important pillar and we must grow this pillar.
Not only can you decide how strong and wide these pillars are, you can decide where they are placed. Is your “Relationship with God” pillar in the center, or do you move God to the side? How is He supposed to keep you upright if you do not put him in a place of power in your own life? We must put our relationship with God in the center of our life and focus on growing and maintaining this relationship.
Remember that it is our choice how big this pillar is and where we put it!
Here are a few ways we can strengthen this pillar:
- Reading and studying the Word
- Praise and worship
- Quiet times
- Christian fellowship
- Church meetings
- Prayer meetings
- Fasting etc.
We will all go through rough times where our life seems to wobble, but where the people in the world will topple, God will keep us standing.
