Knowing Your Election of God - 1 Thessalonians 1:4

Ralph Waldo Emmerson was an 19th Century essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet. One of his famous essay’s is “Self-Reliance.” In it he instructs his listener to examine their relationship with Nature and God. For he understood the hypocrisy that flowed from many of

the Christians of his day. Therefore, he wrote, “What you are speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” In other words, the lifestyles of many professing Christians in his day were so contrary to the word of God that it overruled the spoken words that flowed from their lips.

Let me repeat what Emmerson thought, and when I read it, ask yourself, is he speaking about me? “What you ARE speaks so loudly . . . that I cannot hear what you say.”

It is time for Christians to stop playing church. It is time to stop pretending to be something we are not. The Apostle Paul, when addressing the church at Thessalonica, made another amazing statement aboutChristian conduct. Paul was assured of their election of God

by their conduct. He said, “Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and

labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father; Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God” (1 Thess. 1:3-4).

How in the world did Paul know this? Had he been permitted to look at the books of eternity and behold their names written before the foundation of the world? Had God revealed to him this information via His divine sovereign decrees? No, of course not. Rather, Paul saw in their lives such evidence of the new birth that he had no question concerning their election.