For what thanksgiving can we return to God for you, for all the joy that we feel for your sake before our God, as we pray most earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?
Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
1 Thessalonians 3:9–13
Heaven and Nature Singing!
Imagine pastor and hymn-writer Isaac Watts waking up one morning in 1719 to do his Old Testament and New Testament readings.
Perhaps his Bible was open to Psalm 98 for his Old Testament section, where he read about making “a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth; break forth in joyous song and sing praises!” Then, after reflecting on that, he may have been led to 1 Thessalonians 3 for his New Testament verses, where Paul is sharing with his friends in Thessalonica all the joy he feels for them. Pastor Watts would have noticed that these New Testament verses seem to resound with the same joy evident in the Psalm he had just read! He could probably feel the joy that Paul was clearly sharing “at the coming of our Lord Jesus,” and he may have thought, “I think I’ll write a song about this!” Maybe that’s how it happened…
Paul reminds us of our own longing to be with family and friends over the holidays as he prays that God will make a path for him to be with his “family” in Thessalonica. It’s the same joy we might feel knowing there is a place of belonging where we can experience the “wonders of His love.”
Paul also encourages his friends to “increase and abound in love for all, as we do for you.” Why? So that we would be blameless before God! No blame on us from the Jesus of Christmas… talk about the Joy to share with the world!
The challenge for us is to bring that same sense of joy to our family, friends and communities by letting heaven and nature sing through us! Be that joy of remembering a Father who sees us blameless because of His great love for us!
Now that is something we can all sing about!
Kelvin Blom is the transportation services manager at Hope College.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.