Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. (It is not religious talk, but the love of God relived in Christian acts of the believer that will win this world to Jesus Christ. In Word and deed.) And 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: 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 dependent on anybody.
{Believers Who Have Died}
Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no 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. 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. (What a beautiful picture of the future! But remember, there is no regeneration! “Except a man or woman be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of the Lord of Heaven.” You can take care of that in the next moment by turning from your sins and inviting Jesus into your heart and learn not to sin again.) For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. (Every Christian ought to be ready to go on a moment’s notice and yet willing to work a lifetime waiting for Jesus’ return. “Even so, come Lord Jesus! Come!”) After that, we who are still alive and 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.

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