Today is December 8 in the 2nd week of Advent.


The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.   
  
Take a moment and quiet yourself. Take a deep breath. Welcome God’s presence, and say Come Holy Spirit.  
  
Today’s reading is from the book of 1 Thessalonians, chapter 4.  
  
As for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. 2 For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. 
3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; 6 and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. 7 For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. 8 Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit. 

9 Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. 10 And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more, 11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you, 12 so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody. 
    
 
Welcome to prayer. Our text today urges believers to live in a way that pleases God... not just occasionally, but “more and more.” It calls us to please God, to be holy, and to love one another. Some of the instructions in the text feel very practical: like ‘mind your own business’! Let’s begin today’s time of prayer doing an honest inventory. You can ask the Lord for the grace to see areas of your own life where He is calling you to ‘more and more’...  
 
As we listen to the text again, pay special attention to the very practical details. This Christmas season, do you find yourself at peace, demonstrating the fruits of the spirit? Or do you find yourself anxious, or stressed, and demonstrating your own grumpiness or impatience? You can be honest before God! Listen to the passage again, and imagine Paul is reading this bit out loud to you personally. What does that bring up for you? 
   
"You yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.” What a beautiful picture of God’s purposes for our relationships. And how sad that all too often, it doesn’t feel real to many of us. This Advent, is there a broken relationship in your life? Someone you need to ask for forgiveness? Could you, in humility and grace, demonstrate moving towards that relationship in a ‘more and more’ kind of way?  
  
Come, thou long expected Jesus, 
born to set thy people free; 
from our fears and sins release us, 
let us find our rest in thee. 
Behold, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome in… 
In the name of the Father, and the son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Music: "Christ The King" - Heaven and Earth