1 Thessalonians 1 NLT
We know, dear brothers and sisters, that God loves you and has chosen you to be his own people. For when we brought you the Good News, it was not only with words but also with power, for the Holy Spirit gave you full assurance that what we said was true. And you know of our concern for you from the way we lived when we were with you. So you received the message with joy from the Holy Spirit in spite of the severe suffering it brought you. In this way, you imitated both us and the Lord. (4-6)
We rarely give God all the credit He deserves. We know that He is involved in the salvation process, but we sometimes still think we have something to do with it. Paul knew better. He knew that the Thessalonians had been chosen by God because he saw the way they responded to the gospel. The evidence was not in how well he had preached but in how they had responded. Paul said he had preached the Good news to them and it had come with “words and with power.” He wasn’t talking about his powerful preaching (as we sometimes put it) but he was talking about the power of the Holy Spirit to open their minds and cause them to wholeheartedly agree with what He was saying. In fact, they were so convinced by the power of the Spirit that they received the message with joy knowing it would result in severe suffering on their part.
Salvation, and ministry (and our whole lives) are all about God. He is the one at work in and through us. He is the one that uses us and He is the one that draws people to Himself. He is the one who enables people to understand the gospel and He is the one who grants the repentance and faith to believe. As Paul put it in 2 Corinthians, we are simply earthen vessels that contain the light of the knowledge of the glory of God inside, so that people can see that “the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” That means there is nothing extraordinary about us; He is everything. Let us never forget that. When God is truly at work in us and through us, the message comes with words, but also, with His power. It is His power that changes lives and that changes the world. Like Paul, I know He is in the mix when the impossible happens and people commit fully to Christ regardless of the cost. Never forget that if you can talk people into something, somebody else can talk them out of it. Only God brings real change that lasts forever.
