Courage My Friend

I am sure that you could use some encouragement, I know I do all the time.  I know that the Christian journey is sometimes difficult, it was very, very difficult for Jesus as He drew near to the day of the cross.  Are we better than our Lord, that we should be exempt from difficulties?  So instead of feeling sorry for ourselves, let's encourage each other on our journey and praise and thank God all the way to the Kingdom.
The Apostle Paul is talking to the Thessalonians as a father would talk to his children and this is what he said:

1 Thessalonians 2:12,13  "that you would walk worthy of God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.  For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe." When we receive the word of truth, it works in us to make us a better person in Christ.  That's what we want isn't it?

They were having trouble with 'words of men' contradicting the 'words of God' back then too, and he was praising the Thessalonians for welcoming the word that they were preaching, as the word of God and not as the words of men. It is the truth we are seeking and this world is full of untruths, all you have to do is look around you, ads are untrue, people lie to you to get what they want, it is a common thing to lie these days.  So what we want to find is the truth that is in the Word of God.

Paul and Silas were sent to Berea by night for protection, and when they went into the synaogogue of the Jews the Bible says that the people "were more fairminded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so."  Acts 17:11.

So they were checking Paul and Silas out too, to see if they were preaching truth.
It is a good thing to check out what we are told and hear, there are so many winds of doctrine these days, let us be careful what we take as truth.  And let us be faithful to what we hear as truth. And encourage each other on the journey to the Kingdom.  There is all kinds of encouragement in the Scriptures that will help us on our journey, we just need to study and believe what we read and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us so we won't read things into what is there and end up believing a lie.  Grandma Joan