“Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—but Satan hindered us”
Therefore we wanted to come to you—
It was Paul’s intention to come back to Thessalonica.
even I, Paul, time and again—
Paul made at least two attempts to come to Thessalonica. Both times Satan frustrated his plans. Later in the book, he sought God’s direction about going to Thessalonica. Paul constantly sought God’s mind in his ministry to the Thessalonians.
“Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way to you” (1 Thessalonians 3:11).
Principle:
We must seek God’s direction to do His will.
Application:
Believers must always seek God’s direction. Otherwise, Satan can hinder our ministry if we do it strictly in human powers. Vision building, goal setting, and strategy making are good, but they are vacuous without God’s direction.
Satan can use any agentcy to block someone from achieving his desire. Some of the agencies can be sickness, Government regulations, distractions etc.
In Proverbs 3:4,5 we are advised not to seek God occasionally for direction but to acknowledge him in all (constantly) our ways , due to the dynamism of Satan .
Here again is a confusion in scripture that a non-cleric can become disheartened with. We are told in scripture that He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. Yet we see where Paul (anointed of God) was hindered to the point of defeat. Was Paul at this point weak in the flesh? Was he out of God’s will? How can we stand or fight knowing that one of the greatest figures of the Bible lost his battle?
Bob, thanks for your post. The Bible does not claim that believers can live without defeat. All we have to do is read the last 1/2 of Romans 7 to see that Paul struggled with his flesh. The flesh is our sin nature. We do not lose that nature until a Christian goes home to glory. David committed murder and adultery as a believer, yet God restored him to the point that he wrote Scripture afterwards.