Be at Peace Among Yourselves

“We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.” (1 Thessalonians 5:12-14)

Respect, Esteem, Admiration

The context here is that of the church, the body of Christ, and of how we are all to minister one to the other as fellow servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first instruction for us here is that we respect those who labor among us and who are over us in the Lord and who admonish us. We are to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. But who are they? Are they everyone who calls themselves “pastor” or “elder”? No! They are not! Why? Because not all of them are “in the Lord” and working for the Lord.

So many people today who go by “pastor” or “elder” or “deacon” or “prophet” or “apostle” or “evangelist,” etc., are not working for the Lord under his direction, but they are following the marketing schemes and gimmicks of the world and of big business in order to grow their numbers. And so they have largely conformed to the world and to marketing the church to the world just like any other business in order to draw in large crowds of people from the world into their gatherings. And so they are also altering the character of God/Christ, his church, and his gospel, to be more acceptable to the world. So they are working for the flesh, and not for God.

And the Bible instructs us that we are to be those who are testing the spirits to see whether or not they are of God. And we cannot go by what they profess with their lips alone, especially since Satan disguises himself as an angel of light and his servants disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Many of them do not serve God, but their own flesh, and Satan, and the world. Many among us are truly “wolves in sheep’s clothing” who are out to deceive the sheep and to lead them astray and to false gospels of human origin which do not require death to sin and walks of obedience to our Lord and to his commands, nor holy living.

So, be very discerning and cautious with regard to whom you are giving your respect and admiration and esteem. These people need to be those who meet the biblical qualifications for elder, overseer, and deacon. So know what those qualifications are. And I am not saying that they, or any of us, need to be absolutely perfect in everything that we do. We are all still humans, and we might fail sometimes (1 John 2:1-2). But they should be people of God who are serving the Lord with their lives, who are walking in his ways, and who are obeying his commands, in practice. And they should not be those who are still living in deliberate sin against the Lord Jesus Christ.

Admonish, Encourage, and Help

The next instruction is that we are to be at peace among ourselves, i.e. within the body of Christ. And this word “peace” means, “gift of wholeness, integrity of being.” It means for us to live in the condition of God’s peace, which is peace with God and with his instructions to us and with his will and purpose for our lives. This involves unity with one another, but that unity must be of the Spirit of the Lord and in agreement with the teachings of the Scriptures, and based in integrity and honesty. So this is not unity or peace with what is not of God and that which is contrary to the teachings of the Scriptures, and that which is of the flesh of man and of marketing schemes.

Following that we are instructed to admonish the idle (unruly). We are to exhort, warn, urge, encourage, caution and counsel them in the word of the Lord and in the teachings of the Scriptures and against all that is not of God and that is contrary to the word of God. And those who are idle (disorderly) are those who are spiritually and physically lazy, slothful, and frivolous, who are not working for the Lord but to feed their own fleshly appetites. They are those who spend their free time just wasting time on entertainment and on the pleasures of the world and who are morally deficient, who have no (or little) regard for what God has called them to be doing with their lives.

And the word “encourage” has in its definition such words as admonish, exhort, warn, and urge with a holy urging, as well as it means to comfort, uplift, help, persuade, inspire, hearten, and cheer. But all encouragement should not be what is contrary to the Lord and to his teachings. We are not to lie to people to make them feel good so that they will like us, in return. And we are not to withhold from them the truth that will save their souls from hell just so that we will not get rejected by them. But we are to speak the truth in love, one to the other, and we are to exhort one another daily so that none of us are taken captive by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13).

So if we have fellow professers of faith in Jesus Christ who we know are fainthearted, i.e. small of courage, cowardly, weary of heart, losing inner strength, and/or exhausted emotionally, physically, and/or spiritually, and/or who are weak, i.e. short on physical, moral, and/or spiritual strength and endurance, we are to try to help them. And depending upon what their situation is will depend upon the type of help that we should provide. But we should never encourage (support) moral or spiritual weakness. Yet, we are to be patient and longsuffering and loving and forgiving with them while not fostering any willful defiance of the commands of our Lord Jesus.

You are Loving and Forgiving 

An Original Work / February 19, 2012

Based off Psalm 86

You are loving and forgiving,

Jesus, Savior, King of kings.

You provided our redemption.

By Your blood You set us free.

You are gracious; full of mercy.

No deeds can compare with Yours.

Great are You; there is none like You.

Glory be to Your name.

Teach me Your way, and I’ll walk in it.

O Lord, I will walk in Your truth.

May I not have a heart divided,

That Your name I give honor to.

I will praise You, O Lord, my Savior,

For great is Your love toward me.

You have delivered me from my sins.

Your grace has pardoned me.

You, O Lord, are full of compassion,

Slow to anger, bounteous in love;

Faithful to fulfill all You promise;

Glory be to Your name above.

Hear, O Lord, and answer Your servant.

You are my God. I trust in You.

Turn to me and grant Your strength to me.

You are my comforter. 

https://vimeo.com/117066958