Established in Faith

1 Thessalonians 3:1 - 13 (RSV) ¹Therefore when we could bear it no longer, we were willing to be left behind at Athens alone,  ²and we sent Timothy, our brother and God’s servant in the gospel of Christ, to establish you in your faith and to exhort you,  ³that no one be moved by these afflictions. You yourselves know that this is to be our lot.  ⁴For when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we were to suffer affliction; just as it has come to pass, and as you know.  ⁵For this reason, when I could bear it no longer, I sent that I might know your faith, for fear that somehow the tempter had tempted you and that our labor would be in vain.

⁶But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and has brought us the good news of your faith and love and reported that you always remember us kindly and long to see us, as we long to see you— ⁷for this reason, brethren, in all our distress and affliction we have been comforted about you through your faith;  ⁸for now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord.  ⁹For what thanksgiving can we render to God for you, for all the joy which we feel for your sake before our God,  ¹⁰praying earnestly night and day that we may see you face to face and supply what is lacking in your faith?  

¹¹Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you;  ¹²and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all men, as we do to you,  ¹³so that he may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.

Faith (Pistis)
Persuasion, that is, credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly constancy in such profession; by extension the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself:—assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity. 

“Faith” is a word with one meaning but with various applications. Faith is, at its core, reliance upon Christ for salvation. It is also the quality of the conviction we hold toward God. The purest and simplest form of faith is measured by our confession of Jesus as Savior and our assent to His Lordship of our lives. Yet Paul is looking for something far more complex here when he desires to know about what “is lacking in your faith.” Paul interchanges the word “faith” with the word “heart.” In this context, the two words are synonymous. We might say today that someone does not have their “heart in the game.” This means that they have lost or are weak in their constancy or resolve – their will is broken and weak. 

Paul is interested in their “constancy” or, better, their faithfulness toward our God and Father. His aim is to “establish” their faith. The word means, “to turn” in the right direction. It might have been used by sailors who turn (establish) their vessel so it correctly faces the wind.

God’s Holy Spirit desires to establish our faith or, better, our hearts. He wants to make produce in us two qualities. He wants to increase our love for others and to perfect our personal holiness. Here is the question that begs to be answered today: Do you agree with those two aims? Is your heart well established in the will of God?