I have been following the information given in I Thessalonians 5:14-22, so I will give those verses again: “Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil”
I am going to pick up with our verse above that says, “Even follow that which is good, both among yourselves, and to all men.” I did not cover the last part of this in my last article, so we will consider it now. We are commanded to follow what is good, even if we are dealing with one who is not a believer, for the command is that we always follow what is good, both among ourselves, or among believers, and also among all humanity. Some people seem to try to excuse themselves if they do not follow what is good when an unbeliever is involved, but our verses teaches us to follow good “both among yourselves, and toward all men”. So, we should get the idea that we are to do good to all people, whether or not they are believers in Christ. In fact, it seems that we should be even more careful to follow what is good when an unbeliever in involved, for our testimony toward that person will be useless, if he, or she, sees something in our actions that seems unchristian or not Christlike! Proverbs 18:19 says, “A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle”. No, we should not do wrong in the eyes of God to keep from offending an unbeliever, but we should be sure that we are doing all within what is right in God’s eyes to keep from offending anyone, especially an unbeliever! Our Scripture above says that we should practice the matter of doing good among believers, and among unbelievers!
Now we come to a command of God that may not be considered as binding, for it says: “Rejoice evermore”. Have you had circumstances in which it seemed impossible to rejoice? Please do not ask that question of me, for I would have to say that I have had such circumstances. I gave up my oldest son to death several years ago, and less than six months after his death I gave up my wife of fifty-six years, so I am acquainted with situations in which it was hard to rejoice. Even if I did not do a “perfect job” of rejoicing during those times, I did find, at least much of the time, a way to rejoice. I must say also that God has given me another wonderful wife, Carol, to whom I have been married five years. Most of us know something about grief, hardships and situations that seem almost impossible, but in all of those there is a way to rejoice in what we have in Christ, if indeed we have received Him as our Savior and Lord, which I did many years ago. Perhaps I need to say that we are not commanded to rejoice because of the problems we may face, but rather to rejoice in spite of them, and all who are truly children of God can find a way to do this. One of my ways to rejoice is to consider what I have in Christ in the future, and at age 80, it cannot be too many years, if any, until I will be with Christ for eternity, and I can always rejoice in this. Yet I do not think that any of us should give up on life, just because we have faced, or are presently facing, difficult situations. After all, none of us has suffered enough to even compare our suffering with the suffering our Lord endured that we might be saved and be with Him forever! I have heard some people say of a certain person: “He is so heavenly minded that he is no earthly good.” I doubt that anyone can fit that statement, for to be heavenly minded usually means that we can be of some earthly good! After all, we are not here forever, moreover, we will be with the Lord forever, so why should we fail to think about that coming day of eternal blessings? By J. Briggs King