2 Thess
1:3 We ought always to thank God for
you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and
the love every one of you has for each other is increasing. NIV
As Paul
addresses the Thessalonians in his second letter, he immediately commends them
for growing in two areas, faith and love. If I had only two opportunities left
in my life to teach biblical truths, these are the two I would pick. I cannot
think of any two doctrines that are more critical to our relationship with
Christ than these. They are linked together in eternal significance.
Whenever we
see the word faith (you can substitute trust), we must remember that it means
faith in Jesus Christ. Faith must have an object. Whenever we say things like,
“my faith got me through this difficult situation,” we are really saying it is
our trust in Jesus that got us through. Otherwise we are just commending
ourselves. I did it because I have faith. Without an object, faith
is worthless. With the wrong object, it is just as worthless.
If I put my
faith in the wrong God, I am going to be sorely disappointed. The only God who
can be trusted is the true and living God, manifest in three persons, Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. He is the God of the Bible. It is our faith in Jesus
Christ for salvation that begins our relationship with Him and it is our faith
in His continued work in our lives that deepens our relationship with Him. This
is what Paul is commending these believers for. Their trust in Christ is growing
stronger and stronger.
The
evidence of this growing faith is seen by their increasing love for one
another. Growing in faith will always bring about more love. More love for Him
and more love for others. There is no greater evidence of our growing relationship
with Christ than the law of love working in us.
When Jesus
was asked what the greatest commandment of God was, he replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the
Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matt 22:37-40)
Paul said
in 1 Cor 13:1-3, “If I speak in the
tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or
a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries
and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not
love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body
to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
Did you
read that closely? Even if you gave up your life, if it was not out of love for
Christ, it gains nothing! Now you can see why this is so important. It is also
important to know what type of love Paul is speaking of. We use the term love
so loosely today that it hardly has any meaning. When I say, “I love my wife,”
it does not mean the same thing as, “I love ice cream.” I may love them both,
but certainly in a different sense.
In 1st
Corinthinans 13, Paul is describing what love is and what it is not. Many
teachers have well said, that since the Bible teaches that God is love, this
passage describes God. The Greek word for love here is agape. It is benevolent, unconditional love. I like to say it is
“love without expectation of anything in return.” Did you know that it is the
same word that Jesus uses in the Matthew passage? In other words, we are to
love God and our neighbor unconditionally.
Jesus told
His followers that the world would know that they truly were His disciples by
their love for one another. The apostle John sums it up this way, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for
love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God
showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we
might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved
us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since
God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but
if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
(1 John 4:7-12)
Do you want
to know if you are truly growing in your faith in Jesus? Read 1 Corinthians 13.
Does that describe you and your relationships with those around you, especially
your brothers and sisters in the Lord? If not, confess that to Him and ask Him,
by the power of the Spirit, to increase your agape more and more. Then you must choose to follow His leading. It
is not about how you feel; it is about surrendering to the one who you have put
your trust in for salvation, justification and sanctification.
God bless
you
Coach
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