41 Finally then , brethren , we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus , that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk ), that you excel still more . 2 For you know what commandments we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus . 3 For this is the will of God , your sanctification ; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality ; 4 that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor , 5 not in lustful passion , like the Gentiles who do not know God ; 6 and that no man transgress and defraud his brother in the matter because the Lord is the avenger in all these things , just as we also told you before and solemnly warned you. 7 For God has not called us for the purpose of impurity , but in sanctification . 8 So , he who rejects this is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8
(Read 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8)
To abide in the faith of the gospel is not enough, we must abound in the work of faith. The rule according to which all ought to walk and act, is the commandments given by the Lord Jesus Christ. Sanctification, in the renewal of their souls under the influences of the Holy Spirit, and attention to appointed duties, constituted the will of God respecting them. In aspiring after this renewal of the soul unto holiness, strict restraint must be put upon the appetites and senses of the body, and on the thoughts and inclinations of the will, which lead to wrong uses of them. The Lord calls none into his family to live unholy lives, but that they may be taught and enabled to walk before him in holiness. Some make light of the precepts of holiness, because they hear them from men; but they are God's commands, and to break them is to despise God.