Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-16
Now we ask you, cure brothers and sisters, try to acknowledge those who work hard among you, buy viagra who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. Rejoice always.

Thought for the Day: If I could encourage every person in the world to memorize one single piece of Scripture and live their lives by it, this would be the passage. Rejoice! Rejoice because God is with you! Encourage everyone you meet to rejoice! Live in peace, be patient, and never, ever, do two wrongs make a right.

In Jesus, Paul saw humanity in its perfect form, and believed that through Jesus, God had initiated a cosmic, reality-changing event. Paul fervently hoped that this change would be obvious to everyone, and that within a relatively short amount of time, God’s peaceful, loving, cooperative kingdom would be fully manifested.

Unfortunately, the change has taken longer than Paul expected. Here we are, a couple thousand years later, still living the unenlightened, capital-obsessed life of our ancestors. Yet still, I rejoice, because things have changed, and things are still changing. I believe the world is becoming a gentler, kinder, more loving, more equitable place. I believe God is at work in every human, no matter his or her religion. God is in and is every man and woman, every adult and every child. We are all slowly being shaped into our ultimate selves.

What Paul didn’t know, what he could never have known, is that the universe moves very slowly. God never, ever causes change by magically deconstructing reality. Rather, the entire universe—which is the very substance of God’s self, is in a slow, joyous march toward realization of Oneness. We are awakening to our Oneness. It’s a process, and I rejoice in it.

Prayer: Astounding God of Glory! Make me more aware of Your presence—intimately intertwined with my cells, my self, and my soul! Amen.