Giving Thanks to God for Signs of Grace (Part 1): Stretching Upward Spiritually
The previous blog post encouraged giving thanks to God. Scripture reveals that God is at work in the spiritual lives of his people. Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 1:3-4:
We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. Therefore, among God’s churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.
The first sign of is stretching upward spiritually or growing towards spiritual maturity. This sign is without a question, a cause to give God thanks. When the apostle writes, “‘We… thank God for you,’ he says, ‘…because your faith is growing more and more’ (v. 3), he is speaking of their growing faith and not to the time they were saved or converted. They are growing in reliance upon the Lord. Growing fidelity to the Lord and his gospel is inevitably stamped by increasing trust in the Lord and his gospel. Increasing trust results in reliability. The Thessalonians are not satisfied by their attainments to this point spiritually, they are growing in their faith and stretching upward in spiritual maturity. It is for this that Paul gives thanks.
Increasing spiritual growth in a church family results in reliability. Like the example of the Thessalonians, we must not be satisfied by our spiritual growth attained at this point of our spiritual walk in the Word. Rather, we are to push on in our faith toward spiritual maturity. Stretching upward spiritually is the result of the grace of God and for that we give God thanks.
Growing spiritually is the first sign of grace in this passage for which we are to giving thanks to God for the growth in our faith.