Busy doing Something

We take a wild ride through parts of two letters to the Thessalonians this morning.  First we deal with the return of the Lord passage in I Thessalonians 4:13-18 and then the man of lawlessness passage in 2 Thessalonians 2.  Those are fun passages to dig into.  There is a lot of mystery around them and they are focused on often.  Two things are certain:  The Lord will return in His Time and in His Way and evil  will abound until then but will never really win.  It reminds me of the battle of New Orleans.  The battle was a huge part of the War of 1812 and over 300 men died over several days in this bloody battle.  However, the treaty had been signed before the battle.  The war was over but they were still fighting because they had not got word of the cease.  We have won the war folks, let's give the battles to the Lord. 
In the meantime, let's stay busy.  Paul (www.lifejournal.cc) warns us this morning to stay busy about the right things.  2 Thes. 3:10-For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. ¹¹For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. ¹²Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.  ¹³As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.  It is always amazing for me to see how some people work very hard about being busy doing nothing.  I have tried to help the hungry through a feeding ministry and I know that there are some who are working hard at doing nothing.  I also know there are some who genuinely need help.  I don't always know which is which and who is who.  So what do you do?  Do you not help the hungry because of the imposters?  I don't think that is how you handle it.  Jesus did not take financial statements from folks at the feeding of the 5,000. He just fed them.  There are always going to be some tares among the wheat but you don't ignore the wheat.  You let God work it out.  I believe what Paul is referring to here is more about what are WE doing, not 'those' folks?  Are we busy? If so, doing what?  Are we busybodies, trying to look busy but getting nothing done?  Are we spending our time digging into other people's business or digging into the Lord's business?  What do we spend our time doing?  We need to be busy about the Lord's business and not let the discouragement of others or their actions get in the way of us doing all we can for as long as we can for as many as we can.  Let's get busy...doing something...productive and for the Lord today!