2 Thessalonians 3:6 - Summer of Scripture

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Welcome to Summer of Scripture on the Naked marriage podcast. For 66 days in a row, we are releasing a daily devotional episode for your marriage. And over these 66 days, we're going to pull out one scripture from each of the 66 books of the Bible and talk about how it applies to your marriage. So if you listen to every single one of these episodes, you're going to have a comprehensive understanding of God's plan to for your marriage. We encourage you to listen to everyone. Let's dive into today's scripture.

Hey there. Welcome back. It is day 53. We are in 2nd Thessalonians, chapter 3, verse 6. It says this and now dear brothers and sisters, we give you this command in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Stay away from all believers who live idle lives and don't follow the tradition they received from us. It's a big one and kind of like what you know, but idol. Why don't we talk about what idol is? It's not a word we use all the time.

And this is not idol. Idol, like the worship of false gods. This is idle, which means laziness, passivity in a sinful way where you detach yourselves from your responsibilities and instead just kind of live in sort of lazy self gratification.

Exactly.

And Paul has strong words here saying don't live that way in other places. He says, make it your mission to work with your hands so you're not dependent on anyone and you can live lives of dignity because you're working and you're not dependent on the government or anybody else. And so I think that there's a lot of practical examples here of just the importance of hard work is a theme in this book of working hard, not making work an idol, but just the dignity and nobility that comes from being able to work and provide for our families and provide for ourselves and to avoid people who are going to try to cheapen that value in your life. Because bad company corrupts good character. The Bible says so. Even within the church there can be bad Influences. This isn't even talking. He says other believers who are living this way stay away from them. So, yeah, they might be. They might be a Christian, but if they're living in a way that's counter to what God is teaching, then you need to have some healthy distance between yourself and them, because you're going to become like the people that you hang out with the most, like the five people in your life that you're hanging out with the most. In a few years, you know, your life's going to probably look more like theirs. Your marriage is probably going to look more like theirs. So your finances are even going to look more like theirs. Most likely, even your personal fitness is going to look more like theirs. We're influenced by those groups that we hang around. And this is one of the many reminders in scriptures of the power of that influence and how we have to be careful not to fall into the trap of taking on the wrong traits.

Man, we do. And, you know, I think about the word capacity that we've talked about before, because Dave has said so wisely. He said capacity is a muscle. And if we get in the habit of having too much rest all the time, or too much just fun time, like never working, always just, you know, out to have a good time. And you guys, I love to rest and have fun and also work hard. I think there's a balance there. But if we get to the point where life is just about kind of whatever whim we feel, we don't have anything we're going towards and we're not working hard. We're not even trying to serve, you know, God in the way of being the hands and feet of Christ, like helping the poor and being available to serve in the church in some capacity and doing charitable work and things like that, then we really. We are not exercising our capacity. And really what you see is capacity atrophy. Just like a muscle will atrophy, if you just lay around all day, you're not gonna be healthy, and your muscles will literally shrink. I don't know if you've ever seen someone who's had to do that because they're healing. You know, what you find is their muscle has to. It atrophies. And it's very striking. You're like, oh, my gosh. Because you can see the muscle they were able to work, and then you see the one they weren't able to work. And there's this huge difference. And in the same way, that's how our capacity is. If we get in the habit of not really working hard and hang around other people that aren't working hard, then what do we.

It's contagious. It's contagious and before you know it, you've fallen into it and now all.

Of a sudden lose capacity.

You lose capacity. And work that used to seem easy and natural now is really difficult. You know, if you're used to lifting weights and you know, you can pick up a 20 pound dumbbell over your head like it's nothing, but then you don't do anything for years and you go pick up that same exact weight, it's going to feel like an impossible task.

Like overwhelming, Overwhelming.

And so, like, I'm just not even going to bother with this anymore. So we've got to keep working to develop those muscles, those mental, physical and spiritual muscles. Because, you know, for us to live the full life that God has for us, we need to work to be at our best. And we have a whole book about this called Naked and Healthy that's about how you and your spouse, individually and together, can maximize your mental, physical and spiritual health and help each other to grow healthier in those ways. And we haven't always gotten this right. I mean, we've had many seasons. We've loved each other in thickness and in health, we say we've been pretty healthy, we've been pretty chubby and we've been a lot of places in between. A lot of places in between. And yeah, you got to live. And I'm always going to enjoy my ice cream and chips and salsa and all that. But in heaven we can eat what we want and have abs in the meantime.

I'm excited about that.

I can't wait. We've got to just be mindful of how we're being a good steward of this one and only body, which is a temple of the Holy Spirit and keeping our energy up so we can do the things God's called us to do.

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Exactly. And also, it's not even just our physical ability to achieve the capacity that God wants us to fulfill, but also our mental capacity. Cause if we're allowing ourselves to get just bogged down with stuff that doesn't matter. And I think sometimes, I mean, I'm not talking about like a mental illness here. I mean, just we've gotten in the habit of not ever focusing our thoughts on anything good. Like, you know, we talked earlier about that verse about whatever is good, whatever is true, whatever is noble. You know, we need to fix our thoughts on what is good and also make sure they have some kind of focus. And yes, we need to have rest, but if we're just kind of scrolling through TikTok and only thinking about whatever that tiktoker said or did or how they decorated the bathroom, like we're literally wasting our time. Like we're not using our capacity for good. And so we've gotta be very careful with our mental capacity, our emotional capacity and our physical capacity and cause those collectively are all the things that affect how we, you know, serve the kingdom, but really more importantly our spiritual capacity. Because if we're not exercising our spiritual muscles, so to speak, by reading the word, by praying, by connecting with other believers, then we're really kind of limiting that capacity as well. Yeah, because we're not growing.

And God wants us always growing. And again, this isn't a performance based faith.

No, no, no.

God loves you right where you are. He loves you no matter what kind of shape you're in. He loves you no matter what your job is, loves you the same. You can't do more to earn his love. So don't misunderstand. This is not at all about earning God's love or earning your salvation or anything like that. Because even the idle people in this situation are sick.

They're believers, they're brothers and sisters and God loves them.

He loves them. They're going to be in heaven, but they're not living to the full calling God has for them. And Paul's writing us in saying, don't be negatively influenced even by people who share the same faith that you share and who love you and care about you. Sometimes their example isn't going to be healthy. So we need to work to be a healthy example to others and work to look for healthy examples in our own life. Hope that encourages you guys today. Tune in tomorrow. We're already to day 54 and we're going to be in Paul's first letter to Timothy, which is a great one. Timothy was his protege, a son in the faith. There's a lot of good stuff there. We'll see you tomorrow.