Live Holy.

 ³It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; ⁴that each of you should learn to control his own body^[a] in a way that is holy and honorable, ⁵not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; ⁶and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. ⁷For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. ⁸Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit. 1 Thessalonians 4: 3-8.
Wow, what a loaded chunk of scripture. This was something that Paul needed to address to the church of Thessalonica because these were things that they needed instruction and reminding of. Even though Paul wrote this to them and not us, the truth and the point Paul was trying to make still applies to us today. Paul starts off by telling them that they should be sanctified (holy-set apart). This is something that God has called us to do. We need to be set apart for him which means for us that we need to be set apart from sin. I know that we could never be perfect but we need to try our very best to stay away from sin. Now I know he goes into sexual immorality and lust which are really big issues that would hold us down. The reason why he goes into that is because this was something that they were dealing with. Believe it or not this is something that the church still faces. There are so many people that are held down by sexual immorality. Even though this is a big issue this isn't the only issue that keeps us from "living a life worthy of the calling"(Ephesians 4:1) I believe that we only see these "big" issues like sexual immorality and if we aren't doing that then we feel that we are ok. This is a lie that satan would love us to believe. Whether it's drug, alcohol, sexual immorality, the way we act and talk, anything that would not allow us to be set apart from sin needs to be addressed and handled. Paul addresses these types of people as heathens, these are people who know of God but don't know God personally. Well I hate to be so blunt but we know God so there should be NO reason why we allow ourselves to continue to live like this! It's not easy, and I'm not writing to you like I'm perfect because I am not. I believe that living our lives set apart for  the Lord is what God is calling us to in this season of our lives. All around me people keep sharing their strories of their struggles and hardships and I feel in my spirit that God is callling us back to him. We've let things in our lives take the place of him but now he wants us all back to him, set apart from sin, and ready to partner with him in the advancing of his kingdom.
So my prayer for us today is that we first of all ask God for forgiveness and repent of our ways. Then I pray that we would ask God for his help is this matter of being set apart. I  pray for an out-pouring of his Holy Spirit because that's the only thing the will help us do this. I pray for deliverance from anything that would keep us from being set apart. I pray for a continuance of strength and faith for us to let God be God.