1 Thessalonians 3:13—“To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.”
Paul’s prayer for increasing and abounding love in the preceding verse has a definite spiritual purpose: “To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness”. Christian love and holiness are inseparable. As the Lord enlarges our love toward fellow believers and toward all men, He also strengthens us to live lives increasingly set apart unto Him.
The word “stablish” speaks of making firm and steadfast. Paul desired that the Thessalonians, amid persecution and temptation, would not be spiritually unsettled, but established in holy devotion to God. This holiness must reach the “heart”, for biblical holiness is not mere outward respectability. God desires inward purity, sincere obedience, and wholehearted consecration from which godly conduct proceeds.
Paul prays that they might be “unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father”. The standard is not merely what men think of us, but what we are before the searching eyes of God. This does not teach sinless perfection in this life. Rather, believers must pursue such holiness that no settled course of ungodliness characterises them.
The coming of Christ supplies the solemn motivation. Our Lord Jesus Christ will certainly return “with all his saints”, and every believer must live in readiness for that glorious day. The hope of Christ’s return should never produce careless speculation, but earnest sanctification.
Therefore, let us not merely ask whether we are waiting for Christ. Let us ask whether His coming hope is making us more loving, steadfast, pure, and holy. The heart that truly longs for Christ will also desire to be pleasing to Him when He appears.
