TUESDAY 28th
1 Thessalonians 3:6-13
NIV (vv11-13) – ‘Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus clear the way for us to come to you. May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.’
ESV (vv11-13) – ‘Now may our God and Father himself, and our Lord Jesus, direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.’
In 1 Corinthians 13:13 we read ‘So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.’ In the very next chapter and the first verse, Paul continues ‘Pursue love . . .’ The quality, virtue or attribute of love is essential in the body of Christ, among men and women who have been born again by the Spirit of God, it is out of God’s great love for fallen humanity that he put into action his great plan of redemption, it is out of his great love for us that Jesus was willing to lay down his life for us, ‘The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me’ (Galatians 2:20) and this level or quality of love should be reflected in the Church, Paul again says, ‘. . . and walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.’ (Ephesians 5:1)
In our text today Paul is encouraging the Church at Thessalonica to allow the love that they already have, to increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, this infers that the love they had for each other within the context of the Church setting needed to increase and to also overflow to those who were outside, that is everyone else. How well is our love overflowing, firstly to those who we are in fellowship with together, but secondly towards those outside, those who need to be reached with the love of God himself. He can reach them through us!