1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 (MSG) You’re God-Taught
4 1-3 One final word, friends. We ask you—urge is more like it—that you keep on doing what we told you to do to please God, not in a dogged religious plod, but in a living, spirited dance. You know the guidelines we laid out for you from the Master Jesus. God wants you to live a pure life.
Keep yourselves from sexual promiscuity.
4-5 Learn to appreciate and give dignity to your body, not abusing it, as is so common among those who know nothing of God.
6-7 Don’t run roughshod over the concerns of your brothers and sisters. Their concerns are God’s concerns, and he will take care of them. We’ve warned you about this before. God hasn’t invited us into a disorderly, unkempt life but into something holy and beautiful—as beautiful on the inside as the outside.
8 If you disregard this advice, you’re not offending your neighbors; you’re rejecting God, who is making you a gift of his Holy Spirit.
The Christian life is one of being made holy or sanctified by the Holy Spirit who works within us. In our passage today, the Apostle Paul reminds us that even our sexuality is to be under Christ’s control. As believers, our bodies are no longer our own; we belong to Christ and serve as containers of the Holy One. God requires that we invite holiness to invade every aspect of our lives. The fruit of self-control is a sign that Christ is Lord of our lives; it is developed as we choose to die to the demands of our flesh.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for the work of your Holy Spirit to keep me in your will. In Jesus’ name. Amen.