FBC Morning Light – July 20, 2022

Well, a good middle of the week to you this Wednesday morning. I hope your week is going well. Lord is blessing your labors, your efforts for Him through this week. Well, today we're beginning 1 Thessalonians in our Bible reading plan, and there's a couple of verses in the first chapter that highlight what real conversion looks like, what it's all about.

So let me read those couple of verses and then make a few comments on it. He says, beginning in verse 8, he says, From you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place.

Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything. For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you. That is Paul speaking of his preaching of the word, when he came and brought the gospel to Thessalonica, and people responded.

He speaks of this, this is the entry that the gospel had to them. What manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

Now, if you turned in yesterday, you listened yesterday to the Morning Light devotional, I brought out this passage in Jeremiah, where those who claim to be God's people, weren't listening to God's word.

They didn't want to hear God's word. They wanted to follow the dictates of their own heart, which led them to pursue other gods, to worship and serve other gods. Here we see just the opposite of that.

Here we see the effect of conviction and conversion, that instead of listening to one's own heart, and worshiping and serving other gods, the person who's truly converted, hears God's word, takes that in.

The result is, he turns away from those false gods. He turns away from idols, and he turns to the one true and living God, the God of the Bible. What idols do people need to turn away from today? The idol of self, the idol of material things, the idol of comfort, the idol of peace, and I'm talking about the absence of conflict and hostility.

People make idols out of all these things, besides the false gods of paganism. In our Western culture, we're more inclined to make gods of self and stuff. The converted person does not look to self or stuff, or true satisfaction, ultimate satisfaction, and life.

Yet, people do that all the time today. They never find it. It's constantly beyond their grasp. They're trying to find true life, meaning to life, and significance in life. They're trying to find satisfaction in life, and hope, and so forth, in everything other than in God, in their own ideas, in their own stuff.

Self and stuff are the idols of our Western civilization. But the truly converted person turns away from self and stuff, and turns to God, listens to his word, to what he has to say, and that has an effect on your life.

Because he goes on to say, you turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God. You want to find out what God is like, and what God likes, and then live accordingly. By his grace, you live accordingly.

That's serving the living and the true God. Furthermore, that genuine conversion of turning from self and stuff to the living God, the one true God, it also gives you a forward look, an anticipation, waiting for his son from heaven, waiting for the return of Christ, and Christ is coming again.

In other words, we don't look to our self and our stuff for our ultimate satisfaction, and our ultimate hope to give us everything that we want and need. We look to God in his word for the here and now.

We look to Christ and his return for eternity, for our forever well-being. It's a complete renunciation. Genuine conversion is a complete renunciation of oneself, of any other God, and it is a turning to the one true God through Jesus Christ, looking for him, looking for his return.

That, my friend, will change your life. I'm just wondering today, has your life been changed? Have you been truly converted, or are you still looking to self and stuff? Turn from that. Turn to the one true and living God.

Our Father and our God, I pray today that we would not be looking at stuff to give us ultimate satisfaction. We would not be looking at ourself as if we can save ourselves, but I pray that everyone listening to my voice today would turn from those things and turn to you, the true and living God.

We may serve you, live for you, and look for Christ in his soon return. This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Well, have a good rest of your Wednesday, and may God richly bless you in it today.