2 Thessalonians 3:5

Now the Lord - The Spirit, whose proper work this is. Direct - Lead you straight forward. Into the patience of Christ - Of which he set you a pattern.

If God directs our love aright upon himself, the rest of the affections will thereby be rectified. That a patient waiting for Christ may be joined with this love of God. There is no true love of God without faith in Jesus Christ.

And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God,.... By which may be meant either the love with which God is loved.

If "the Lord" be here the Holy Ghost (2Co 3:17), the three Persons of the Trinity will occur in this verse. love of God--love to God. patient waiting for Christ--rather as Greek, "the patience (endurance) of Christ," namely, which Christ showed [ALFORD] (2Th 2:4;

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

FOR the moment, Paul in spirit is coasting the purple shores of the celestial country. With his Thessalonian friends he is making a joyful voyage within hail of Immanuel's land. The sail is bright with the sunlight and the keel is marking a silver track behind it. The Apostle's happy soul has left far in the stern the deceivableness of unrighteousness and the rocks of error. It comes into his heart that he would gladly steer his friends into certain of those lovely creeks which run up far into the inner recesses of the sacred fatherland.

FOR the moment, Paul in spirit is coasting the purple shores of the celestial country. With his Thessalonian friends he is making a joyful voyage within hail of Immanuel's land. The sail is bright with the sunlight and the keel is marking a silver track behind it. The Apostle's happy soul has left far in the stern the deceivableness of unrighteousness and the rocks of error. It comes into his heart that he would gladly steer his friends into certain of those lovely creeks which run up far into the inner recesses of the sacred fatherland. Shall he turn the helm that way? He pauses, for the navigation is difficult. One must be greatly expert to thread the streams which descend from the sunny fountains. It is not given to all saints to follow safely all the windings of the rivers of delight. Paul had been with his Brethren at sea in the place where the Lord sank all their transgressions in the depths and he had been with them in sore affliction when neither sun nor moon appeared—and in all such seafaring he was in his element. But, brave pilot as he was, he could not pretend to penetrate all the richer and rarer experiences which bring elect souls nearest to the heart of the great Father. Therefore, instead of offering to be their pilot, he bowed his head and prayed, "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ." The special entrance into the goodly land, which the Apostle desired for his friends, was one which mere insight, wit, knowledge, or instruction could never give them. If so, he would have directed their minds that way at once. But the perception of the heavenlies is only given to heavenly faculties. The attainments which Paul desired for his friends were not beliefs of the head but indwelling of the heart.

The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God - The love of God is the grand motive and principle of obedience; this must occupy your hearts: the heart is irregular in all its workings; God alone, by his Spirit, can direct it into his love, and keep it right; κατευθυναι, give a proper direction to all its passions, and keep them in order, regularity and purity. The patience of Christ - Such patience, under all your sufferings and persecutions, as Christ manifested under his. He bore meekly the contradiction of sinners against himself; and when he was reviled, he reviled not again.