1 Thessalonians Chapter 4
Encouragement to Please God
1 Finally, we urge you by the Lord Jesus to live the way you should—like you received from us—so you improve your living even more. 2 You know what commandments we gave you from the Lord Jesus. 3 This is the will of God who sanctifies you: that you abstain from sexual immorality, 4 that each of you know how to exercise self-control in holiness and honor ( 5 not living in lust like Gentiles, who don’t know God), 6 that you not sin and cheat on your fellow Christian in such a matter. The Lord avenges things—like we warned you. 7 He didn’t call us to impurity, but to holiness. 8 So whoever rejects that warning isn’t rejecting us, but God, who puts his Holy Spirit in us.
9 You don’t need me to write to you about brotherly love. God himself has taught you to love one another. 10 Indeed you do that to the believers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you to step it up 11 and make it your ambition to live quietly, mind your own business, and work with your hands; 12 so you’ll be living right toward outsiders and won’t need anything. 1 Th 4:1-12
Hope for the Dead
13 We want you to know about Christians that have died, so you won’t mourn like people without hope. 14 If we believe Jesus died and resurrected, we can also believe God will bring with Jesus the ones that have died in him.
15 We tell you from the Lord that we who are still living when he comes back won’t have any advantage over the ones that have died. 16 With the shout of an archangel and the trumpet of God, the Lord himself will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will resurrect first. 17 Then we who’re still living will go up with them in the clouds to meet him in the air; so we’ll always be with him. 18 Console one another with that. 1 Th 4:13-18