Spread the Love

Scripture: May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.
1 Thessalonians 3:12 NIV

Observation: Paul is encouraging the Thessalonians to love each other.

Application: Paul told the Thessalonians that he, Paul, would be persecuted for the gospel and that he feared that the Thessalonians would fall away from the faith. He sent Timothy to them to encourage them and received great news from him that the church was holding strong. As I read this passage today I was struck by Paul’s plea to that church to love each other to the point of over-flowing in the face of that feared persecution. Laurie and I are in the midst of being attacked from many sides.  Some bad stressors, some good, but stressors none the less.  Health issues, weddings, graduations, and long-distance parental health and housing, not to mention the usual financial loveliness that we all endure.  Through it all our love for each other just grows and our love for the Lord grows too. I pray, as Paul did, that our love overflow from each other and out to everyone else.

Prayer: Lord, I pray that the love that Laurie and I have for each other spill out to others. I pray that people see us and ask, “what is it?”  In that, you will be glorified. I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen

Doug