2 Thess 3:1   Finally, brothers, pray for us that the message of the Lord may spread rapidly and be honored, just as it was with you.

       

We have commented before that these verses are largely chosen randomly but there seems a natural link between today's verse and what we considered yesterday. There we were considering possible revival in the very last days whereby many turn to the Lord having heard the Gospel. The Gospel is for preaching, the Gospel is for spreading.

Jesus came so that the Good News of God's love and rule could be shared among humanity. The Holy Spirit was poured out on the Day of Pentecost as a Spirit of revelation and Peter immediately started the ongoing process of preaching the Good News. As soon as Paul was converted he started preaching the Good News. When you've received it and found out how wonderful it is, you want others to know of it and experience it too.

 

But Paul knows there is a battle to share it and he knows they need help and so he requests prayer support from the church in Thessalonica. He reminds them of how the word was preached there and how it spread rapidly, but he doesn't take it for granted that it is always like that. He wants it to be but he knows it needs the Lord's energising and he knows that somehow that is released when we pray. Thus it is a logical thing to ask for prayer to help the spread of the Gospel as they preached it wherever they were. Do we see this same connection between prayer and the fruitful spread of the Gospel? Pray!

We should be aware that throughout history there have been high points and low points in Western society and our temptation today may be to think we are in a low point (in the UK only 5% of the population attend church on a Sunday, in the USA it is 30% and falling) but within all that is or is not happening in the West today, there are many signs of God moving in and through His church and that should encourage us to pray more fervently for His word to go forth bearing fruit even more.