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👉🏼 (Reading: 2 Thessalonians 3:6-15)
📜 ""For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example. We were not idle when we were with you … We did this. not because we do not have the right to such help, but in order to offer ourselves as a model for you to imitate""
2 Thessalonians 3:7,9 (NIV)
📋 To glorify God as Christians, we need to be intentional about being an example to others to follow. That's what the Apostle Paul did. As a believer, he chose to live a Christlike life in order to be a pattern for other believers to follow.
In today's focus text, he says, "For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example … We did this … in order to offer ourselves as a mode for you to imitate." One good example Paul set while he was with the believers in Thessalonica was hard work.
This is his own testimony: "… We were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone's food without paying for it. On the contrary, we worked night and day, labouring and toiling so that we would not be a burden to any of you" (v.7-8).
It honours God when believers intentionally choose to live such a godly life that they become models for others to imitate. We can follow Paul's example by deciding to offer ourselves as models for others to follow in several ways.
For instance, we can choose to be truthful holy and humble.
Determine to live an exemplary life.
🔑 Key Lesson: It pleases God to see his children living an exemplary life.
🛐 Meditation and Prayer: Lord, empower me to be a godly model.
📚 Further Reading: Philippians 3:17-21.
◼️The Bible in One Year: 2 Chronicles 25-28.