The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

1 Thessalonians 1:2-3, “We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers;

3 constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the

presence of our God and Father…”

I am thinking of two words that are all-too-often missing in our verbal and written conversations today. Can you guess what they are? They are “thank you.”

I am thinking of someone for whom those two words are all-too-often missing. Can you guess who that person is?

The person is the LORD JESUS! It is He who deserves our thanks. And we should find and say “Thank you, LORD” each time when we pray. We are currently living under a virus crisis; fewer things are purchasable than they were a few months ago. Maybe…just maybe, the LORD allowed all of this to cause us to be thankful for what we have. We take far too many things for granted!

Further, we should bear in mind three distinct things: 1) the work of faith; 2) the labor of love; and steadfastness of hope. The faith that we possess is His work within us. Without the LORD, we would have no faith. We express faith because the Holy Spirit who lives within us prompts it. He nudges us and say, “Well, thank God for what you have! Go on thank Him.” The labor of love is from Him as well. Labor (kopos) is more intense than work (ergon). In another place, Paul tells us that “the greatest of these is love.” So, we are to work at loving one another! Some people are not easy to love; and some of us don’t love too well, either. Thus, when love shows itself, it is of and from the LORD.

Finally, there is the “steadfastness of hope.” Steadfastness (hupomone) is “patient endurance,” and hope (elpis) is future certainty to the believer. I’m by nature an impatient person. You may be one, too. It’s not a good position for any of us. God’s timing is always best! You and I know that; why don’t we just leave everything in God’s Hands? I’ll verture to say why: we’re just more worldly than we are spiritual. You don’t have to be doing something egregiously sinful to be called “worldly.” You just have to lack trust in the LORD and His timing. Think about all of this: faith, love,

and hope. They’re qualities that bring glory to our blessed LORD! And when we think of what He has done for us, it exceedingly small that we should praise Him for it.

Heartily in Christ Jesus,

(Dado III)

P. S. Remember to pray for Whitney Tilson’s salvation; and don’t forget the Sight & Sound Theatre production of “JESUS,” Wednesday

night on TBN (TBNHD) at 08:00 P. M. CST.

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

Springdale, Arkansas 72764

United States of America

“We never know that God is all we need until He becomes all that we have.”