I Thessalonians 1:4 “Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God.”
How peaceful would be our rest, if we could lay down at night with people around us being able to know that we are among “the elect of God” (Colossians 3:12) and that they base their knowledge upon our “work of faith” and “labour of love” and “patience of hope” and that the whole object of our lives is “our Lord Jesus Christ” and “God … our Father” (I Thessalonians 1:3). Paul is not applauding them because they did these things to become one of “the elect”, but He is encouraging them because they are showing forth the blessed fruits of their “election of God”! If we could do something (anything) to become “the elect”, then we wouldn’t be “the elect”, we would be a Stockholder in Heaven because we would have purchased or earned this status. But here is the Biblical truth concerning “your election”: “the elect” were given to Christ “before the foundation of the world” (John 17:24); God the Father “hath chosen us in” Christ Jesus “before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4), the “election” was not the result of man’s will or works “(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)” (Romans 9:11), “the elect” are made the “Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” (I Peter 1:2), “the elect” cannot possibly be eternally charged with sin (Romans 8:33), and one blessed and holy day our Lord “shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect” (Matthew 24:31) and we “shall be caught up together … in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (I Thessalonians 4:17)! From the rest of Chapter One, it is clear that they had gone to and participated in Church, actively listened to the Preaching, gone home and “searched the scriptures daily” (Acts 17:11), and then applied what they had learned to their lives. Now, they are called “brethren beloved”! And, their “election of God” was made obvious by their behavior. Let us pray and labor that it will be so with us!