November 16, 2025 -Words to Live by

ACTS 17:16-18:3

1 THESSALONIANS 1:1-5:11

Chronological Bible Readings

^{1 Thessalonians 2:4} For we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News. Our purpose is to please God, not people. He alone examines the motives of our hearts.

As an elder, youth leader and connect group leader I daily ask God to direct my thoughts words and actions. I ask that I might say or do something that would bring someone else and myself closer to Him. I ask for eyes to see and ears to hear where He is working that I might join Him there. Those are the times that the message of the Good News that I am entrusted with is best received. I do not want my words or actions to be motivated by my own ideas or opinions or for my own recognition. I pray that our session would rightly "speak as messengers approved by God". That we would live and lead with one purpose. To please God and God alone. Not self and not people. And when He examines our hearts and we are found failing to speak and act in ways that please Him, may He lovingly yet firmly set us back on that path.

^{1 Thesalonians2:7} As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. ⁸ We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too.

May we not only share and teach the good news but that we would care for our congregation. Lord, may we love each other so much that we would also share our lives with each other. I pray that our session would not just come together to accomplish the work and ministry of the session but that we would come to share our lives with each other. In living our lives to please God may we not seek praise or acclimation from others but let our diligence and faithfulness be a testimony to the work of Christ in our lives.

1 Thessalonians 4:1 Finally, dear brothers and sisters, we urge you in the name of the Lord Jesus to live in a way that pleases God, as we have taught you. You live this way already, and we encourage you to do so even more.

In living a life with the motivation to please God and not people we are setting an example. May others see the elder team living such lives that it may encourage each person down to the children in our church to want to live a life the pleases God. After all,

^{1Thessalonians 4:8} Therefore, anyone who refuses to live by these rules is not disobeying human teaching but is rejecting God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.