{"id":5063,"date":"2025-11-25T08:29:52","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T13:29:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/?p=5063"},"modified":"2025-11-25T08:29:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T13:29:52","slug":"i-thessalonians-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/25\/i-thessalonians-11\/","title":{"rendered":"I Thessalonians 1:1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u00a0Each day this month we\u2019re looking closely at one of the 1:1 verses of the Bible \u2013 exploring what we can learn from chapter one \/ verse one of various Old and New Testament books.<\/em>

\u201cPaul, Silas\u00a0and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians\u00a0in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you.\u201d

Paul mentions grace at the beginning of all 13 of the New Testament letters that are attributed to him. He also mentions grace at the end of all 13 of the letters attributed to him.

Grace must be an incredibly important component of the Jesus Story.

It is.<\/em>

Grace is the notion that God\u2019s presence, God\u2019s love, and God\u2019s forgiveness cannot be earned. They cannot be deserved. They can only be received.

That idea goes so strongly against the grain of human instinct that most of us are strongly tempted to believe that God will favor us only if we are good, or if we perform, or if we love God first.

Jesus turns all that on its head. According to Jesus, God<\/u> lovesus<\/u><\/em>. Period. And right now he\u2019s making the offer of a lifetime. Deal or No Deal: You can be in a transforming relationship with God in which he provides all the power, all the meaning, and all the resources \u2013 if you will abandon all your efforts to win God over according to some kind of performance plan. That\u2019s grace.

One of my friends calls his mother every Sunday evening. Their conversations always end the same way. He says, \u201cLove you, Mom.\u201d And she always answers, \u201cI loved you first.\u201d God loved us first<\/em>. This truth is so incredible that if we choose to believe it, our lives will begin to change.

In his book Wishful Thinking,<\/em> Frederick Buechner writes:\u00a0\u201cAfter centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words have become so shopworn nobody\u2019s much interested anymore.\u00a0Not so with grace<\/em>, for some reason\u2026

\u201cA crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There\u2019s nothing you<\/strong><\/em> have to do.\u00a0There\u2019s nothing you have<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>to do.\u00a0There\u2019s nothing you have to do<\/strong><\/em>. The grace of God means something like this:\u00a0Here is your life.\u00a0You might never have been, but you are<\/em> because the party wouldn\u2019t have been complete without you.\u00a0

\u201cHere is the world.\u00a0Beautiful and terrible things will happen.\u00a0Don\u2019t be afraid. I am with you.\u00a0Nothing can ever separate us.\u00a0It\u2019s for you I created the universe. I love you.\u201d

Buechner concludes, \u201cThere\u2019s only one catch.\u00a0Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you\u2019ll reach out and take it.\u201d

Marjorie Kitchell was leading a church service several years ago just before Christmas and decided to use a beautiful poinsettia at the front of the sanctuary to illustrate her message. She announced, \u201cWhoever wants this poinsettia may have it.\u00a0All you have to do is take it.\u201d

Everyone in the congregation stared at her.\u00a0Marjorie waited.\u00a0Then she waited some more.

Finally, a mother timidly raised her hand and said, \u201cI\u2019ll take it.\u201d\u00a0\u201cGreat!\u00a0 It\u2019s yours,\u201d said Marjorie.\u00a0That\u2019s what she wanted.\u00a0A quick and easy illustration that God\u2019s love is both available and free. To her astonishment, however, the mother nudged her son and said, \u201cGo get it for me.\u201d

\u201cNo,\u201d said Marjorie, \u201cwhoever wants this gift has to come and get it personally.\u00a0You can\u2019t send a substitute.\u201d\u00a0The mother shook her head, not willing to risk embarrassment.\u00a0

More time went by.\u00a0It was a gorgeous plant, unusually large, wrapped in red cellophane with gold satin ribbon.\u00a0Several people had already commented on its beauty.\u00a0Now it was free for the taking. Someone snickered, \u201cWhat\u2019s the catch?\u201d\u00a0\u201cThere is no catch!\u201d she replied.

Still, no one moved.\u00a0\u201cCan I take it after<\/em> the service?\u201d asked a teenager.\u00a0Marjorie almost gave in, but then said, \u201cYou have to come and get it now.\u201d

She was at the point of regretting the whole affair when suddenly a woman she had never seen before stood up at the back.\u00a0She came forward quickly, as if she were afraid she might change her mind.\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ll take it,\u201d she said, and quickly returned to her seat.

Marjorie then declared the Good News that God\u2019s gift of eternal life is absolutely free \u2013 to those who will receive it.\u00a0When the service came to an end and most of the worshippers had already left, the woman who had taken the poinsettia stepped forward.\u00a0\u201cHere,\u201d she said, thrusting something into Marjorie\u2019s hand.\u00a0\u201cThis flower is too pretty to take home for free.\u00a0I couldn\u2019t do that with a clear conscience.\u201d\u00a0

Marjorie looked down at what was crumpled in her hand. It was a ten-dollar bill.\u00a0

Something inside every one of us says, \u201cGod\u2019s best stuff can\u2019t possibly be free.\u00a0I have to pay for this.<\/em>\u00a0There\u2019s no free lunch.\u00a0There\u2019s no free heaven.\u201d

But the reason gift-giving became associated with Christmas in the first place is that it is God\u2019s inherent nature to give. What does he ask for in return?\u00a0Open hands \u2013 and an ever-growing grateful conviction that there really is no catch.

No wonder Paul chose to open his letter to the Thessalonians \u2013 as well as all of his other letters \u2013 with a reminder of the centrality of grace.

There is, however, one final word that must be spoken \u2013 an important tension on the pages of Scripture that needs to be noted. God\u2019s grace is free. But it comes with responsibility. We\u2019re given both a gift and a task.

But they always come in that order<\/em>.

First we are called by grace to become members of God\u2019s family. After we receive our place at God\u2019s table by trusting Jesus, our lives must change. We cannot keep on living the way we have always lived.

As the apostle John puts it in I John 4:10, \u201cSince God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.\u201d

The gift of grace, in other words, must always prompt us to go through life as grace-providers.

Which is really a way of saying to God \u2013 every day of the year, and not just during Thanksgiving week:

Thank you.<\/em>
Thank you.<\/em>
Thank you.<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here \u00a0Each day this month we\u2019re looking closely at one of the 1:1 verses of the Bible \u2013 exploring what we can learn from chapter one \/ verse one of various Old and New Testament books. \u201cPaul, Silas\u00a0and Timothy, to the church of the Thessalonians\u00a0in God the Father and the Lord Jesus… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5064,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1029,101],"class_list":["post-5063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-11-series","tag-grace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5063"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5065,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions\/5065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}