The Thessalonian church was suffering, grieving, and confused about the Day of the Lord. They feared that believers who died would miss Christ's return and that judgment might fall on them when Jesus came. Paul writes 1 Thessalonians 4-5 to rebuild their hope by giving them a true understanding of Christ's return. He teaches that Jesus will return once, pubicly and victoriously, raising the dead in Christ, reuniting body and sol, and gathering all believers together. The Day of the Lord is not a threat to God's people because they are children of the light, destined not for wrath but for salvation. Therefore, Christians must live awake and sober, rembmering their identity, encouraging and building one another up, and caring for the weak and fainthearted. The final destination of Christian hope is life with Jesus forever, where every tear is wiped away and all suffering ends. The return of Jesus gives believers unshakable hope for today and until the day He returns.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12, God’s will is not framed around finding the right job, city, or spouse, but around becoming holy - set apart in love. The passage reveals both definitive sanctification (already chosen and made holy in Christ) and progressive sanctification (growing more and more into that holiness), and then presses that identity into two intensely practical arenas: sex and work. In a Greco-Roman culture where adultery, prostitution, and cultic sex were normal, believers are called to a radically different sexual ethic that springs from their God-given value and the costly love of Christ displayed at the cross and pictured in Hosea’s relentless love for Gomer. At the same time, in a community tempted to idleness and “busybody” living while waiting for Jesus’ return, they are called back to quiet, faithful labor that refuses to burden others and instead reflects the God who never stops working for His glory and their good. Underneath both areas is the same heartbeat: those who are “loved by God and chosen” are to live out that love in their bodies and their jobs so that the watching world sees what kind of Lover and Master they belong to.

Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians shows how believers become resilient in faith—not through comfort or ease, but through endurance in suffering, reliance on the Spirit’s power, and hope rooted in Christ’s coming. The Thessalonian church was born in persecution, yet their faith thrived because it was more than intellectual assent—it was lived conviction. Paul celebrates that their faith “came in power and in the Holy Spirit,” producing visible transformation and courage to turn from idols even when it cost them everything. This opening chapter teaches that true resilience grows when faith holds fast in affliction, when obedience continues despite opposition, and when hope in the returning Son of God eclipses the world’s threats and promises.

2 Timothy 2:1-2 teaches us that real thriving means making disciples because making disciples multiplies faith and matures faith. In the call to multiply faith, the enemy that combats against this is oftentimes selfish faith. Selfish faith is more concerned about me, myself, and I rather than God's kingdom, his mission, and his people. The way we surrender our selfish faith is by being given a vision of a thriving life that is more compelling than our selfish ways. Multiplying faith is a more compelling way to live because God’s salvation extends beyond one person but carries on from generation to generation. But also, discipleship provides the means for mature faith. Paul explains discipleship always happens in the context of personal and proximate relationships. And it’s through relationships that people come to love Christ above all. Discipleship is not an easy task but God has provided a source that his people can always return to for strength and it’s his well of grace. This is what sustains us and strengthen us to make disciples who make disciples.

Curt Thompson writes, “We all come out of the womb looking for someone looking for us with love and delight.” As God’s creation, we are made to receive and give love by God. In Jesus we are given this love and it’s in him we receive our desire to be seen, felt, and loved. As recipients of this love, we are then called to give it away just like Jesus did for us—lavishly, sacrificially, even to our enemies—who, like us, are broken and longing for His healing. When we’re saturated in Christ’s love, we can’t help but love others, whatever the cost. And as we do people will slowly find their way home—the heart of the Father.

John 15:1-11 teaches that real thriving is not measured by external success but by inward delight that comes from abiding in Jesus. The world defines thriving by achievement—status, possessions, productivity—but Jesus defines it by fruitfulness born from intimacy with Him. Like branches connected to the vine, believers bear fruit naturally when they remain in His love. Abiding is not a morning ritual but a continual relationship, a rhythm of dependence and communion that transforms ordinary moments into encounters with divine joy. In contrast to the anxious striving of Martha, Jesus invites His followers to sit, rest, and receive—to find the freedom and delight that achievement can never produce.

True thriving, as revealed in John 12:24-26, is not self-improvement but the paradoxical life that springs from death to self. Jesus likens it to a grain of wheat that must fall into the ground and die in order to bear much fruit. Real thriving holds together an inward delight in God and an outward blessing of others, rejecting both inner turmoil with outward success and inward peace with outward selfishness. In contrast to the world’s self-focused “optimized” thriving, Christ calls for a reordering of loves where the love of God becomes the controlling affection and self-love is dethroned. This death to self—embraced in marriage, friendship, and every arena of life—produces the fruit of the Spirit and a life that resembles Jesus rather than the self. And what makes such death possible is the compelling love of Christ, whose own cross demonstrates that loss for His sake leads to true life and lasting fruitfulness.

Colossians 3:1–4 shows that eternity is not a distant abstraction or an escapist consolation, but the very life of God already given to us in Christ. To be raised with Christ means our old life has died and our new life is hidden with Him, reorienting our entire biography from birth–life–death to birth–death–life. Eternity anchors us now, crowding out sinful desires with the joy of resurrection life, so that our present sufferings do not define us but serve us by shaping Christlikeness that will continue seamlessly into glory. Eternity, then, is not merely length of time but “God-life,” flowing from His being and breaking into the present to give courage, clarity, joy, and endurance until the day when Christ appears and we appear with Him in glory.