Everyone thought they would fail.

Within weeks of Paul and his team arriving in Thessalonica with the good news of Jesus, those who had come to faith were left without leaders, facing persecution and under intense pressure to recant their faith.

Paul, Silas and Timothy had been forced to leave. Those opposed to this new Christian faith had persuaded some local troublemakers to stir up the assembled crowd with lies about the team. They had no choice but to go.

Paul was desperate to return. “When we were torn away from you for a short time… out of our intense longing we made every effort to see you” (1 Thess 2: 17). However, for reasons unclear, they weren’t able to get back until Timothy finally made the journey on his own.

In an age with no mobile phones or internet connection, the wait for news must have been excruciating. Had the church survived the persecution? Were they still meeting? With the longest standing church members barely a few weeks old in the faith on the day Paul and the team left, did they have any leaders? Who was taking care of these baby Christians?

Eventually Timothy returned with the welcome news that the church had indeed survived and their faith was still strong. The young Christians were standing firm despite the challenges around them, but that wasn’t all. To Paul’s joy and amazement, not only were the Thessalonian believers still meeting as a church, but they were reaching out to their local community, to the wider area and even beyond. In fact, their passion for evangelism was the talk of the town for miles around.

What was their secret?

In the same first letter to the Thessalonians we get some insights: The baby Christians knew they were chosen by God; the gospel had made a deep impact in their lives; and they had experienced God’s supernatural power. None of them had been mentored with leadership skills, none of them could boast any kind of spiritual heritage, but despite their lack of knowledge and training, God used them.

If we were to look for examples of spiritual maturity in the pages of the New Testament, we might point to well-known characters like Paul, or Peter, or those trained under them; those who have been faithful in serving God over many years, in which case you can forget the Thessalonians. They don’t qualify.

And yet Paul tells us they had become a model church to all others within hundreds of miles.

Now, I don’t want to minimise the importance of education, training and the maturity that comes with years of serving God, but maybe we can learn from young Christians too; especially those who have experienced God’s love and power and the deep impact of the Gospel.

Who is he talking to? It sounds like he is talking to himself!

Psalm 103, starts off with a short phrase that is often repeated in other Psalms: ‘Praise the Lord, my soul.’ The author says it again in verse 2, ‘Praise the Lord, my soul.’ And again, at the end of the psalm.

King David, who wrote these words, also wrote Psalm 57 and there is similar language here: ‘Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn’ (57: 8). David is telling himself to wake up and give glory to God.

He’s talking to himself.

My wife and I were chatting one time about how different people are and how those differences can often boil down to personality type – just one way that God has made each of us unique. However, we are also part of a fallen human race and in the process of being renewed. Not everything that makes me, me is necessarily as God intended. We all have a mixture of positive attributes in our personalities and negative ones that are yet to be made transformed.

For example, some of us will naturally have a more positive outlook than others. Others, not so. My personality type is melancholic which, according to some studies describes someone who is analytical (yep, that’s true), task orientated (tick), self-motivated (yes), a perfectionist (oh dear), but can be quite shy and ‘deep’; and with a tendency to want to hide away occasionally. Actually, for some, discouragement, even depression is part of the story and can hit hard. But, hey, us melancholics can be really creative!

Without Christ, I would quite easily see the negative in most situations, but when I read the Bible, I don’t think I am alone. Look at the way David expresses himself in Psalm 13:

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts

and day after day have sorrow in my heart” (Psalm 13: 1 – 2)

When we read David’s soul-bearing poetry, some of it makes me wonder if he might have been a melancholic too. We don’t know of course but, if that is true, then he has got something important to say in this space: talk to yourself! When discouragement sets in, when there’s sorrow in your heart, speak to your soul!

Our souls are fragile. We were once spiritually dead in our sins, but through Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection we have been ‘made alive’ (Eph 2: 1, 5). Now we are on the path of transformation, but we are still subject to temptation, discouragement, and spiritual attack.

For every Christian, there are times when we are tempted to dwell on the negative – and every personality type has a bad day. Perhaps those are the moments God would have us look in the mirror and talk to our inner selves: “Awake! Come on! Today is a new day and we are going to praise God and trust him!”

This devotion is one of many you can find in my book Bite-size Devotions for the Busy Christian, published by Kharis Publishing and available through any Amazon website.

So, are you ready for Christmas?

There’s food to buy, things to cook and bake, decorations to put up.

And I wonder if you have bought all your presents. Done all the wrapping?

Let me ask you: Are you the type who does their Christmas shopping at 4pm on Christmas Eve; or the type who has everything bought and wrapped by August?

For those who prepare for Christmas well in advance, you may be interested to know that preparations for the first Christmas took a great deal longer.

It all started way back in the book of Genesis.

In Genesis chapter 3, we are told that a descendant of Eve will come and destroy the work of the devil. Many years later, in the book of Deuteronomy, we read of a prophet like Moses who will be raised up from among God’s people, Israel. Thousands of years later, Jesus said, “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.” (John 5: 46)

In the book of 2 Samuel, a prophet declares to King David that his royal throne will be established forever. Jesus would come from the line of David, who in turn came from the line of Judah.

The Prophet Micah (prophesying hundreds of years before Jesus) said,

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,

though you are small among the clans of Judah,

out of you will come for me

one who will be ruler over Israel,

whose origins are from of old,

from ancient times.” (Micah 5: 2)

Somebody from Judah’s line will come - a ruler, whose origins are from old. (I wonder if that means from eternity past – Heaven perhaps?). That person is going to be born in Bethlehem.

And Isaiah prophesied “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel.” The baby will be born to a virgin. We know Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus. And the prophecy said he will be called Emmanuel, which means God with us.

By the time Jesus was born there was great expectation of a coming king, a Messiah, from the line of Judah, through David, yet coming from eternity past; a prophet like Moses; he will be born of a virgin, and he will be God walking among us.

So, the time came for a secular government to announce a census, which meant that the newly married Joseph and Mary (pregnant with child) had to travel to Bethlehem. Upon arrival, she gave birth to a child. God with us in human form had arrived. The first Christmas was literally thousands of years in the making.