Prayer Works Morning Devotion October 5, 2026

A Chapter By Chapter Study Of The Epistles:

1Thessalonians Chapter 4

3It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, 5not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; 6and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before.

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Good morning everybody. I hope that you had a lovely weekend and that you are well rested and you are ready for another week. And we thank the Lord for keeping us safe. We thank the Lord for providing for us.

We thank the Lord for protecting us from harm and danger, seen or unseen. We thank the Lord for His new mercies that He gives us daily. We thank the Lord that He has a plan for us today and He has a plan for us for tomorrow and the future ahead.

We thank the Lord for the families that we have. We pray and thank the Lord for the peace that He has given us, for our hearts as we continue to live out in this challenging world but yet we find ourselves at peace and we find ourselves loving and caring because such is the love of God in our lives.

So we praise the Lord for the things that He's doing in our lives, the things that He's going to do for guiding us, for protecting us, for shepherding us, for giving us the gift of the Holy Spirit to have an advantage in the world that needs a lot of explanation.

Yet we just find ourselves being sustained by His Spirit. So we bless You, Lord, for Your goodness and Your mercy. We bless You, Lord, that You have no problem finding us.

And we bless You, Lord, for this morning, as we gather on this prayer call, to seek Your face, to commune with You, to commune with the Holy Spirit, to commune fellowship with one another, because we need this Spirit, we need Your love, we need Your guidance.

So Father teach us in youth in this morning open the eyes of our understanding so that we can see You for who You are so we can understand that which You are calling us to understand and bless our mornings and bless our time together.

And Father may You help somebody today to see You clearly and we pray Lord that as we look at these scriptures let Your spirit guide us let Your spirit guide us because our efforts have no meaning.

If Your present is not here so let Your spirit guide us in everything that we do because the scriptures reminds us that those who are saved must live by the spirit and that's our desire to live by the spirit so we thank You this morning in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen and Amen.

Brothers and sisters We are back in 1st Thessalonians chapter number 4. The book that Paul wrote to this church to encourage them, to strengthen them, and to give them instructions of how to carry themselves.

And you'll see when we get to chapter 2 that this book talks a lot about the return of Christ. And the reason why that is in there is because they were starting to forget and starting to dream about other things.

So hence we all need reminder and you can understand why the Lord will capture this book and put it in the scriptures as part of the holy scriptures because we also as fellow believers and as fellow Christians or as fellow human beings who tend to fall into this category of what was going on at the church in Thessalonians.

So Paul writes to encourage them and to give them the call to purity, that he wanted people to be pure for sanctification to honor your body and also that we should never exploit one another which is what we are seeing nowadays people exploiting one another.

It talks about brotherly love and how we ought to live this life. It's right there in the scripture and to have a good reputation. That's what Paul is encouraging this church to do and he's also encouraging us to walk like that.

So let's go into the book. And for other matters, brothers and sisters, we instruct you how to live in order to please God. That should be a top of your priorities. How do I live to please God?

Or how do I walk worthy of the calling and salvation I received? Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus.

It is God's will. It is God's will. Remember we talk about God  has wills. It is God's will that you should be sanctified. Sanctification is what God desires to happen for you and I, which means that we should be sanctified, set apart.

We should be sanctified that you should avoid sexual immorality, that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable.

Holiness is what God desires from us and it's so saddening that you can't even talk about holiness in church anymore. It's almost like a taboo. But yet God keeps instructing us, be holy as I am holy.

So you have to live a holy life. It should be a desire in your heart to be holy, to be sanctified, set apart. We can't just be like other people. We can't just be in the world and also be in this kingdom.

It's just not what God made it to look like. You can’t do worldly things and expect to be holy. Holiness is when you desire to stay away from things that defiles you because you know the Lord is watching you.

And He desires for you to be holy. So Paul says we have to have control over our own bodies. Not in passionate lust like the pagans who do not know God. And that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or a sister.

Just don't take advantage of anybody. The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins as we told you and warned you before. For God did not call us to be impure. God did not call you and I to be impure but to live holy lives.

That's why he called you and me to live holy lives. So we must live holy lives. No cursing, no watching stuff that's not good for your soul. Therefore anyone, listen to this, Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God.

So not desiring to live a holy life, you are literally rejecting God. The very God who gives you His Holy Spirit. Now, why does Paul throw the Holy Spirit in there? He throws the Holy Spirit in there.

Because he knows that the ability to be holy or the desire to be holy will not take place unless the Holy Spirit is there to guide you. And you've heard me say this, that the quickest way to holiness is through temptation.

That when you are tempted by something and you choose not to, in that moment you become holy. That's what holiness is. When you feel the need to either cut somebody in traffic and you hold your peace, you become holy.

When you see something on TV and it violates your spirit and you immediately say, Nah, I can watch that, you become holy. That's what holiness is. The quickest way to get to it is when you see temptations and you go the opposite direction.

And Paul is saying therefore anybody who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God. The very God who gives you the Holy Spirit because He is the driver and the guide of our lives.

It's an advantage that God gave you and I in order to live the lives that He desires for us to live. Because He knew we could not do it ourselves. That's why He sent Jesus, and that's why Jesus says I must go so that you can get this advantage to enable you to live a holy life.

Nobody can live a holy life without the aid of the Holy Spirit. It's just that simple. So when you see people who are not saved saying, I'm just a good person, it's just impossible for you to be good alone without the aid of the Holy Spirit.

Otherwise, no need to send Jesus to die on the cross if we could do it our own selves. Now about your love for one another. We do not need to write you for yourselves. We've been taught by God to love each other.

In fact, you do love all of God's family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life. Your life should not be loud.

Over the top. It says you have to live a quiet life. Because the world pushes you to live a loud life where everything is in everybody's face. That's what the world teaches us. It says no instructions from the God is that you all have to live a quiet life.

Why do we need to live quite lives? Because God, Jesus, when he's dying, remember in John 16 and 17, when he's praying, he says, my peace I give you, and God's peace you get.

Because the goal for the Lord, what God wants, this is what God wants for your life, is for your life to have an ambition to live a quiet life. And verse 11 also continues and says this you should mind your own business and work with your hands.

Just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be depended on anybody. So what are the signs that you are living a quiet life, that you are minding your own business, that you are doing, that you are living sanctified holy life.

What is the telltale sign? What are the signs for it? When you start winning respect, from outsiders and when you stop being dependent on other people. And why is this included in here?

Because the ultimate goal for you and I, or what God desires, is that we are dependent on Him. Because He is God. And when you are dependent on Him, He will never put you in a place where you will be dependent on other people.

Because He wants to get the glory. Verse number 13, Now Paul starts talking about believers who had passed away and passed on. Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in debt.

We've talked about this before, that when you are of salvation and you are saved and you're following after Christ, you do not die. You fall asleep, you go and take a nap, awaiting for the last trumpet.

So he's saying to them, that you do not grieve, which is those who are alive, as you and me now, like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. This is one of the scriptures that is read a lot at funerals, just to encourage you, brothers, for we believe that Jesus died and rose again.

And so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep. Now, when you actually think about this, guys, you realize this is the evidence that those who die one day will be resurrected.

It says, it happened for Jesus, who we believe and who we walk and who we run with, who is in us. So, also, the ability for that to happen again is yey and amen. Why? Because the person that we believe in already died and was resurrected.

So if God can do it once, that means He can do it again and again and again and again. And the person who was resurrected from the dead, that person, Jesus, is different from everything you've ever heard about anybody saying somebody who died and came back to life.

Most times somebody starts praying when somebody dies. But Jesus, they just put the stone, forgot about him, and three days later, here He comes. In fact, He was telling them way before that, that I'm going to come back.

So he's saying that resurrection that happened should be an encouraging thing for you and I when we see somebody who is in the Lord pass on. We know for a fact and surely that this person we are buried today, one day will rise up again.

That's encouraging. So Paul says, we can't grieve like the rest of mankind. We don't have hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him.

Not outside of Him, in Him. According to the Lord's word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with the loud command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

So in fact, the person who experienced the first trumpet of the end times are people who already passed on. They will rise first. After that, we who are still alive are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air.

And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words. What a letter to a church that was struggling, with the church that needed to know the truth, to a church that didn't know how to live.

That's why this book was written, because they had no idea how to live. And you can see why God would say, let's capture these canonizes and make it of the holy scriptures because there is a time coming years from now.

When people who are saying we have no idea on how to live and to act as Christians. So we have no excuse Christians should never have excuse of how to live how to conduct their affairs because God has given us instructions. He makes sure that he will not leave anything to chance.

He gave us proper instructions and when you combined all his statutes, values, the instructions, the laws, the wisdom and you put it all together, you realize that there's no excuse for anybody to fail.

That's why I would say it's very difficult for a Christian to fail. It's impossible. Because God is intricately put things together so that there is a clear message for everybody on how to live as a believer.

And it's so sad that when we go or attend different classes at different places or different churches when they have new believers classes that this is not taught instruction on how to live as a believer, how do you do this?

I'm sure some of us have been said for a while and you could look back and say hey nobody ever really actually taught me how to live as a believer I had to accidentally on purpose through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and reading scriptures.

That the Lord had to say hey this is how you do it. That's why the Bible says in Titus 2, one of my favorite scriptures, that the order must teach the younger. Because if the order does not teach the younger, he says the word of God will be blasphemed.

So Paul is giving us instructions of how to live, to conduct the affairs of this kingdom. My favorite one in this passage of scripture is be holy. Live at peace. at peace. Your heart can be noisy in there.

Your mind, it can be noisy. Don't take in garbage. Because if you have a noisy mind, noisy heart, God does not really want that for you. This is God saying, I don't want that for you. You should be at peace as a believer.

And we said one of the best ways to know you are living the right way says when people look at you and command the way you carry yourself, there has to be something about you that when people look at you, they see that you are different.

They see that you have self-control. They see that you're living morally right, that there's nothing that can point out at you, because you have a desire to live pure and holy.

And I'm telling you, when you live your life well and right and it's pure and it's holy and you're following and hunger after all the necessary things, I'm telling you, people tend to leave you alone, always tend to leave you alone.

They have respect for you. I remember growing up or being in college or at work when I used to work for the Brigham Women's Hospital. When you hear people say, Hey, hey, please don't cuss today, Zee is here.

Because holiness should be seen should be touched, should be experienced by those that encounter you. It's not something that we just say, I'm holy. Praying, singing, reading scriptures, all the things that we do in the church, that's not holiness.

Holiness is looking at temptation and choosing that you don't desire to be tempted in that way. And then the Holy Spirit gives you the power and authority to overcome temptation. When you do that, you become different.

And people have incredible respect for who you are. But not only that, be at peace. Be at peace so that other people can have total respect for who you are. Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, our blessed redeemer, we come to You this morning and we thank You for Your grace and Your mercy. The songwriter wrote a song years ago, says, Beautiful Lord, Wonderful Savior.

I know for sure that all of our days are held in Your hands, crafted into Your perfect plan. You gently call us into Your holy calling, guiding us by the Holy Spirit. Lead us, dear Lord, as we pray.

Mold us, shape us, lead us, guide us because we are captured by Your holy calling. We thank You that all Your ways are loving and ever faithful, that the road is narrow but the burden is light, that You gladly lean to seek the humble.

So we shall gladly lean to live our pride. Draw us near to You, as we draw near to You. Help us, Lord, to guide us in times of strife and challenges. Protect us from our own thoughts and the things we see and the things that we hear.

We pray, Lord, that this world will not contaminate that which is only inside of us. Put a hedge of protection around us. insulate us by the blood of Jesus. We thank You for great salvation.

And we pray, Lord, that we don't just want to be here, but we want to be an example for those who see us, for those who experience us, for those we talk to and commune with.

That may out of the depths of our hearts may they see the need for salvation for what we are and who we are is desirable to those who are in desperate need of this gospel.

Father, we repent on behalf of this nation with all the debauchery, the conniving, the corruption, and the things that are going on around us. On behalf of society, we repent lest You come and destroy us.

Father, You send angels in advance to Sodom and Gomorrah to see if they could find holy people in the city and they could not. I pray, Lord, that it shall not be so in our time, for our desire to be holy is ignited, strengthened and guided by the Holy Spirit.

We thank the Lord Jesus Christ for keeping our minds straight in all things right and in all things true, in the name of Jesus. I pray, Lord, that when we see temptation, remind us that this is the quickest way to get us to the holy life that You desire for us to walk in.

We want to be pure before You. We want to know You in the spirit of truth, so that we are sanctified, set apart for kingdom usage. I pray Lord that if there is anything that is holding us back, give us the courage, the boldness, the determination to eliminate that which defiles us.

Help us in our thinking so that our thoughts can be pure. I pray for our children that Lord, we are going to continuously dedicate them back to You. Because we know, Lord, You hold the future and the plan for them.

For those who are in college, those who are in high school, in middle school, nieces and nephews, those, Lord, that You have given our families as a gift. We give these children back to You, nieces and cousins and nephews.

We give them back to You and ask the Lord to guide them in the way they should go. Help us also as parents, uncles and aunts and grandmothers and grandfathers to teach them that which is right.

So that Lord God, You can move them into a future that is brighter, ready to run their own race as they receive the baton from those who go on to be with You. Pray for strength as they deal with many challenges that are thrown at them with this word.

We pray, Lord, that they will not be hindered by addiction or any form of addictions in their life, including phone addictions and the need to look at screens which this generation has pushed so much into their lives.

I pray that it shall be so. Father, even as we get into these unprecedented times, as we deal with AI and all these things about artificial intelligence. I pray, Lord, that we will not be alarmed, that we will not be shocked.

Because we know that all other ground is sinking sand. Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses. But Father, we are choosing to stand and to trust in You. Because we know You hold all things and You know all things, nothing is hidden from You.

Every secret meeting You are present, unbeknownst to those who think they are hiding. So Father, whatever You have allowed to happen is because You can take it and use it for the benefit of the church.

So Father, we pray that as we come into contact with this official world that is being created, may we remain pure because our hearts and our minds are totally given to the usage of this kingdom.

Bless widows amongst us, families that have lost fathers, those Lord who are having to deal with life without fathers in the home. But Father, we know You are the ultimate Father, the ever constant, ever present.

Now, we ask You Lord to be very present in the homes of these families, to provide for all their needs according to the riches in glory. To give them a comfort life full of grace, peace, love, understanding, hope, for the future and strength and wisdom to live good lives.

Pray for peace for every home where there is no father. Father, I thank You for Nadia, for Annette Grant, Meredith Shepherd. I pray Lord that may You continue to guide them into all things right and true.

Bless the children as they go to school and continue to matriculate in life. Guide them so their future can be great because You are the ultimate Father. Pray for all our seniors. Help them to stay strong, strengthen their bonds, strengthen their minds.

I pray Lord that they will not fall because we know one of the biggest challenges our seniors is falling. I pray that it shall not be so amongst this group that You have given us as anchors of this life.

I pray Lord that You preserve their mind from these 21st century diseases like dementia that they will continue to forge and to walk a life that is worthy of the calling that You call them into.

Give them the wisdom to know when to rest and to know when to do what is right. And we pray Lord as they get much older that may You give them the ability to listen and to know that those around them who are of young age are of health in the name of Jesus.

We pray for Vee’s mom that she will receive salvation that You experience the truth of the word of God and to walk in it and to enjoy and to celebrate thus says the Lord.

Help every family member and help those Lord who are taking care of aging parents that God may You strengthen us may You provide for us may You equip us with the very true essence of who You are so that we can be the very true people You call on to under guard aging parents, in the name of Jesus.

Now, as we go about our business today, our goal today is to remain holy, to walk in purity, to walk in peace, to be at peace, because You are the God of peace. I ask You, Lord, to bless us so that we can walk in spirit of expectation, knowing, Lord, that You have planned for us.

And we want to experience and to see them come into full manifestation. Now, according to Your will, may we live this life the right way. Lead us not into Your temptations, but Father deliver us from the evil one.

For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever, Amen and Amen. Brothers and sisters, we thank the Lord for you. We thank the Lord for His spirit that is in you. Lean on that spirit.

In fact, as we've been reading in Genesis, one of the things that set Abraham apart, in spite of the things that he did, in spite of the mistakes he made, in spite of all the things that he might have done that were not for the Lord.

The thing that set Abraham apart was his ability to always go to the Lord. For anything, even things that he could do himself, he went to the Lord. There's nothing Abraham did that he didn't go to the Lord.

In victory, he will build an order for the Lord. In challenges, he will go to the Lord. In mistakes, he will go to the Lord. In victory, he will go to the Lord. He mastered the ability of going to the Lord.

And so much that he taught his family and his children that even when Rebecca was pregnant and the boys were kicking in her belly, she went to the Lord to inquire for that.

That's how that became a culture of this family and that's why Abraham was made the father of faith because he created a culture of going to the Lord for everything and anything.

So may we learn from him and may we walk as such and do it like Abraham constantly going to the Lord. Have a blessed day. Walk in favor, walk in truth, walk in purity, walk in holiness, and walk in expectation.

We'll see you back here tomorrow, 7 a.m. Central, 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time and we love you. Have a blessed day.