Day 3

Scripture to Read: 2 Thessalonians 3:9

God calls many of His children to serve as equippers of the saints. God tells us this in Ephesians 4:11-12 “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” As God calls these believers to equip all of the saints for His work, the saints are also commanded to take care of the equippers. God makes this truth clear in 1 Corinthians 9:14 “So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel,” and also in Galatians 6:6 and 1 Timothy 5:17-18. But, as we read today in 2 Thessalonians 3:9, we see that God had led Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy not to receive any wages from the Thessalonian believers. This was not because Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy did not deserve to be taken care of, but because they wanted to be an example to the new believers in Thessalonica. There are times that God calls His equippers to be what’s called bi-vocational. The equipper serves as a pastor, teacher, evangelist, etc…and also works another job to pay bills and take care of their family and themselves. God wants us to be obedient to take care of our pastors and to follow the godly example they live before us, so we walk in daily obedience with our Lord.

Challenge & Application

1. What did God teach you today about taking care of the pastors and following godly examples? 2. Who will you share with this week what God has been teaching you?

Don’t forget to pray using the A.C.T.S. (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication) method!

Devotionals from this week

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Day 1

God gives us many commands throughout His Word. These commands from God are to be obeyed every day and are not negotiable. The command God led Paul to write in 2 Thessalonians 3:6 is one of those commands that often is more difficult to obey. God strictly tells us to make sure we stay away from every believer who is living an undisciplined/un...

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Day 2

God gives us godly people in our lives as great examples to follow. When we consider the role models we have chosen to follow, we need to make sure they are passionately pursuing Christ and His Word and also living obediently to Him. As we saw in yesterday’s devotion, we need to make sure we are not hanging out with undisciplined believers. G...

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Day 3

God calls many of His children to serve as equippers of the saints. God tells us this in Ephesians 4:11-12 “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” As God calls these bel...

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Day 4

There are times that we, as Christians, forget that God has created us for work. If we are not careful, we can become complacent or even complain about our job (i.e., schoolwork, housework, chores, taking care of the mortal body we now live in). What we must remember is that work is a gift from God. We know work is God’s gift to us because in...

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Day 5

We know, from yesterday’s devotion, that work is a gift from God. We also know, from the devotion on Day 1, that there were believers in Thessalonica who had become unruly/undisciplined/lazy because they thought that Christ would return any day and so they just quit working. What God commands, through Paul, is for anyone capable of working is...

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Day 6

Growing weary is something we all struggle with at times. Sometimes the weariness is due to hard work. Some weariness is caused by mental or physical stress. But there is also a spiritual weariness. Because we walk into spiritual battles every day of our lives, we can become spiritually weary too. What we must remember is who our battle is ag...

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Day 7

To lovingly discipline a brother or sister in Christ is incredibly difficult. Many believers try to steer clear of lovingly disciplining another believer. We usually avoid lovingly disciplining another believer because we either feel inadequate or like we’re too judgmental. But God has given us specific commands about how we are to admonish t...

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