We Need Each Other

The Passion Translation reads as such in 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 3 and verse 8:

Paul says: “We feel alive again as long as we know that you are standing firm in The Lord.”

How are you feeling this morning?

Are you feeling like giving up?

Are you feeling like, “What’s it all about? I don’t know if I can carry on much longer.”

Well, you have to.

Not for your sake but for the sake of the brethren.

In the New King James Version, the same verse, 1 Thessalonians, 3:8 says:

“For now we live. if you stand fast in the faith.”

We need each other, like iron sharpening iron.

Remember, no man is an island.

We can’t live without each other.

Get up this morning, straighten yourself up and live for your loved ones.

Live for each other.

There are no lone rangers in the Kingdom of God.

Phone one another, greet one another.

It builds up faith.

Paul says: “For now we live. if you stand fast in the faith.”

And just before that, he was explaining just how much tribulation he had gone through.

This is not a time for us to go into our cocoon and say, “Well, I am going to make it on my own.”

No, we need each other.

You know, I remember like it was yesterday, when I was driving that big yellow seed-sower, right up into the northern part of Central Africa.

I was in an area where there was no contact. We had no cell phones in those days. There were no towers. I could not afford a satellite phone and for a couple of weeks, I was completely cut off from any contact with my wife Jill, or my family.

And it is not a nice feeling, I can tell you.

We were right in the north of Zambia where Tanzania and The Congo join.

And we were sitting there and I used to pray everyday, and I got so lonely.

And yet people were coming to Christ and many souls were being saved.

I remember on the way back, the first little town that I could get to, the very first one, I stopped outside one of those little shops and I tried to make contact with my wife, and eventually we got through.

And when I just heard her voice, just her voice, I cannot explain to you how it lifted my spirit.

I was still a good three weeks travel away from home but I was lifted up.

“How are you, Jill?”

“I am well.”

“How are the children, the grandchildren?”

I don’t know if there were grandchildren in those days, but “How is the family?”

And she said, “We are all well, Angus, and we are strong, and we love you and we are missing you and we are praying for you.”

That kept me going.

Now folks as this lockdown continues for a short more period, let us encourage one another because when we do that, it keeps us going.”