May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ. – 2 Thessalonians 3:5
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist and engineer living in northern Germany. He had watched construction workers blast rock to clear areas for building structures or highways and had begun experimenting with an alternative to black powder explosives, trying to develop something more robust. He experimented with a number of substances, but many were unstable to the degree that workers in his factories were killed in explosions of nitroglycerin. While Nobel knew it worked, he had to find another substance that would make it safe to handle and transport. He tried combinations of cement, coal, and sawdust, finally settling on fossilized algae, known as diatomaceous earth. He called it dynamite and was granted a patent for it in 1887.
One commentary calls the first few verses of the third chapter of 2 Thessalonians a “short, simple prayer, but when unpacked, it is a spiritual stick of dynamite!“ It is a prayer for the “spiritual maintenance” of followers of Christ who are doing well and obeying God’s commands. Its words underscore continual learning as a necessity in the Christian walk. Theologian Charles Spurgeon says, “We must peer into this abyss of love, plunge into the sea; dive into the depth unsearchable. Oh that God might direct us into the immeasurable greatness of his love! … Oh that we may feel something of it while we meditate on it… to enter into the love of God by seeing its central importance.”
“The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell. … Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made; were every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade; to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry; nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.” Let the words of this hymn and today’s verse ruminate in your thoughts as you seek to know the immeasurable, steadfast, and dynamic love of God.
Today’s Verse: 2 Thessalonians 3:5
May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recommended for further reading: 1 Corinthians 2:6-13
6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
