“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.”
1 Thessalonians 3:11-13 ESV
As Christians, we
know and believe that our forgiveness and salvation were provided for us by
Jesus. We know and believe that he made these blessings possible by his death
on the cross and his resurrection from the grave. And we know and believe that
these blessings are received as a free gift through faith in Jesus.
As we reach out to
unbelievers, this is the message that we proclaim. This, we know, is the message
of the gospel. It’s the good news of what God has done for us.
However, after we receive
the gospel, after we receive God’s forgiveness and salvation, our understanding
and our message suddenly change. Instead of trusting in Jesus for the blessings
that he provides, we look to our own efforts to produce growth in our faith.
And instead of proclaiming the gospel, we instead proclaim a message of law, a
message of what must be done in order to achieve growth.
Just as there’s
nothing we can do to receive the forgiveness and the salvation of God, there is
nothing we can do to attain growth in our faith. This too is a blessing
received only by grace. And it’s a blessing that is received through faith.
We see this as we
look at the above passage. Paul had been expressing his concern for the
believers at Thessalonica, and his desire to see them. And he looks to God to
provide that opportunity for him.
He then goes on to
express hope that the Lord would cause their love for one another to abound. He
expresses hope that the Lord would cause their love for all people to abound. And
he expresses hope that the Lord would establish their hearts blameless in
holiness before God.
In this statement
that we tend to read over as nothing more than a personal sidenote, Paul makes
it clear that Christ alone is the source of this blessing. It’s the Lord who
causes our love to abound. And it’s the Lord who establishes our hearts blameless
in holiness before God.
We, then, must not
look to ourselves for our growth in faith nor in our love for others. We must
understand that, just as we are saved by Christ alone, so too do we grow in
faith. It is his work as we look to him. It’s his work as we trust in him.
The changes that we
see in our life, then, are the fruit of this work. It is something that’s
produced not by our efforts. It’s something that’s produced by the Lord’s work
in our life.
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