Shared Life

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8. One of the strangest things about the American church is that we have spent so much time reversing the mission of God.  What I mean by that is that God spent all this time making sure the WORD became FLESH.  All that God has said and all that God is was put on full display in Jesus.  He did not drop "truth bombs" from afar, but the incarnation is the Word becoming flesh.  In America, we have tried to do the reverse of this... we've tried to make Jesus words only.  We've tried to boil the Gospel down to bits of information that we need to think about.  Transformation doesn't come with new information.  The power of Christian transformation comes by FAITH.  Do we believe this Good News?  And the quickest way to influence a person is to be AMONG them... not just speak AT them.  Paul reminds the Thessalonian church that he didn't just share words with them, but he lived WITH them.  He put on display what God was doing in him.  Yes, they shared the words of the Good News, but they invited people to live with the Good News.  We must remember as the church that the Gospel is passed through closeness.