{"id":10104,"date":"2022-03-31T05:38:08","date_gmt":"2022-03-31T10:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-1-thessalonians\/"},"modified":"2022-03-23T14:42:09","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T19:42:09","slug":"devotional-on-1-thessalonians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-1-thessalonians\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on 1 Thessalonians"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_16184\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-16184\" style=\"width: 960px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P7259638.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-16184\" src=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P7259638-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P7259638-1024x768.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P7259638-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P7259638-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P7259638-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/P7259638.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-16184\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; dunes south of Florence, OR<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I\u2019ve been changed<\/p>\n<p>1Thessalonians 1: Something happened in you.<\/p>\n<p>The Apostle writes two letters to the church at Thessalonica, a city of Greece that still exists today: Thessaloniki. Bible scholars tell us that these letters are some of the earliest writings of the New Testament, penned a mere 20 years or so after the ascension of Christ. Jesus promised that he&#8217;ll come back and it\u2019s that promise that drives these letters. When the gospel was preached at Thessalonica a few years earlier it was wonderfully received. People believed and in believing their lives were changed right then. As our Lord put it, they were born again and thus made new. Not only were they changed in the present, but their view of the future was changed too. Now, every day contains in it a sense of anticipation as they \u201cexpectantly\u2026await the arrival of\u2026Jesus.\u201d That expectancy drives them, flavoring their lives in positive ways. No life situation is forever and a better day will begin any moment now. This has made these made new people into optimists who are admittedly curious as to exactly how it will all come about. Today, I\u2019m 2000 years distant from these believers. Still, I have this in common with them: I too look forward to that day with both optimism and a certain measure of curiosity as to how it will all play out in the end.<\/p>\n<p>Take Away: Christians anticipate the Second Coming even though we admit we don\u2019t know exactly how it will all play out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been changed 1Thessalonians 1: Something happened in you. The Apostle writes two letters to the church at Thessalonica, a city of Greece that still exists today: Thessaloniki. Bible scholars tell us that these letters are some of the earliest writings of the New Testament, penned a mere 20 years or so after the ascension [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1474,1428],"tags":[1339,766,941,959,1100],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10104"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10104"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16186,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10104\/revisions\/16186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}