Turn Your Eyes Heavenward All The LORD is near Daily Devotionals for 2023

We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thessalonians 2:13–14

Turn Your Eyes Heavenward
The Thessalonians had only recently turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Already they were faced with the bitter attacks of the enemy seeking to unsettle them. Having warned them of impending danger, the apostle Paul turns their eyes heavenward. He reminds them that it is God Himself who from the beginning had chosen them. This beginning takes us back before time began to the eternal counsels of God, and it also looks forward to the glory of the eternal day to come.

Paul reminded them that they are “brethren beloved by the Lord.” They belong to Him. All the combined forces of evil are unable to thwart the purposes of God, who in sovereign grace had begun a work in their hearts by sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth. This describes the work of the Spirit in separating a soul to God. It is by the gospel that God calls us, with the end in view to be with our Lord Jesus Christ forever. The victory has been gained by Christ on the cross. He finished the work the Father had given Him to do and is now seated in highest glory. Soon we will be there with Him.

As we view God’s sovereign grace in calling us and setting before us this blessed hope, it is bound to have a practical effect in separating us from the ungodly world around us. We will not be looking back at what we have left behind, but instead we will be looking forward—“looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross … and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb. 12:2).

Jacob Redekop