“Now may our God and Father Himself, and our Lord Jesus Christ direct our way to you. 12. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another, and to all, just as we do to you. 13. So that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints.”
These verses are loaded with truth. As many times as I have read them, I have never really meditated on these verses. You know how we read and think we are really concentrating and miss the great truths in a text. What I see in this text is that Paul wanted to visit Thessalonica again. Before his visit, Paul wanted them to work on loving one another. If there was ever a need that we should deal with in churches today, this is it! Paul pointed out to the Thessalonian Christians the importance of agape (ahgahpay) love in their church. It is a lesson for us too and we need to heed it. He wanted the Thessalonians to “increase and abound in love.” I don’t know if Paul had heard that they had a problem loving one another, or if this was just general advice that he gave them. No matter why Paul advised it, it is important advice. We need to occasionally check our own love quotient. We also need to check the love quotient in our churches. Do we genuinely love each other with agape love, which is the sacrificial love with which Christ loved us enough to die on the cross to save us from sin? This is old advice and has been written about and preached on for two-thousand years, but it is advice that is largely ignored. Like the Thessalonians we need to increase in love. Paul wanted the Thessalonians to “increase and abound in love to one another.” This Christ like kind of love was to be directed to “one another.” I like the NIV translation of this, which is, “May the Lord make your love increase and overflow.” This means that as the Thessalonians increase in Christ like love in their hearts it should overflow onto other people. The advice is that we are to have such love in our hearts that it can’t help but overflow to other people. Man oh man, how we need this in our lives and in our churches. I’m going to call it “overflowing love.” If one thing is clear in the teachings of the New Testament, it is that we need to love one another. Do I really need to quote John 13:14-15 again? Yes!!! Here it is: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 15. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” It is important that we love one another in order to be witnesses to the world. Which brings us to the next point: Paul wanted the Thessalonians to “abound in love to one another, and to all.” This overflowing love could not be held captive in the church, it had to overflow into the pagan society in Thessalonica. I think sometimes that we think when we love one another in church, and have such a great time together, that we forget about the lost world beyond our church doors. It is important that we love another, but if it does not flow out of our churches it is not doing what it is supposed to do. The NIV translates it: “May Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else,” This is really inclusive isn’t it? It means that we are to love that mean person at work who needs Jesus. This means that we can’t dismiss people because they don’t agree with us about Jesus. We need to remember that Jesus loves them and died for them as well. So we need to love them before we can witness to them. This advice is two-thousand years old, but it is just as relevant now as it was then. We need to teach it, preach it, share it and practice it in our daily lives. It is important that we have a dynamic love in our own hearts that reaches out to fellow Christians and the lost world. Let’s not just give it some thought. Let’s practice it. Bro. Joe
1 Comment
Margaret M Jones
9/17/2015 09:35:31 am
Good devotion, basic teaching
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