Being free to
work hard

At the start of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, 1v3, he says “We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ”. The journey of recovering from sexual brokenness towards maturity in Christ is one that takes work, labour and perseverance.

It is so easy to try and muster up the strength ourselves in order to ‘do the work’ required to move towards freedom. But the reality is that these things don’t spring from our internal resources. There isn’t some method of self-actualisation that we can tap into in order to have what we need to persevere through the process of growth and maturity. No, each of these things come from something else (faith, love and hope) that has firstly been freely given to us by our Father. Faith is a gift from God (Eph 2:8), we love because he first loved us (1 Jn 4:19), and the hope we have is held out in the gospel (Col 1:23).

Increasing in purity and Christ-likeness takes work and effort. But praise be to God that he is the one that gives us all we need to strive for holiness using the strength that he provides. And so may we find our rest in him, while being free to work hard for the growth of his kingdom.

Linden Simmons
August 2025