Grow and Increase

 

DEVOTION

THE 2^ND LETTER TO THE THESSALONIANS

GROW AND INCREASE

2 Thess 1:1-4

1:1 Paul, Silas and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: 2 Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

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. 4 Therefore, among God's churches we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring.

NIV

We are not sure just how much time it has been since Paul wrote his first letter to these people. However, most of our scholars place this letter about a couple of months after his first letter. As we noticed in his first letter there was great concern about false teachings and especially about the time of the coming of the Lord. Paul went into great detail about what will happen on the day, but also made sure they knew that no one knew when it would happen as he compared it to be like a thief in the night. Now, most likely the Paul has heard an update from the carrier of his first letter to them. Most likely the situation has worsened and as he warned about idleness in his first letter and that everyone should work with their hands, it appears some more may have quit their jobs having listened to these false teachers, and are just sitting around waiting for Jesus to show up. As in most of Paul’s letters, he always starts off with a standard type greeting which was customary in that day. There is no need for us to go into detail about this greeting as we did in the first letter regarding grace and peace as we are more aware of God’s grace and peace now. He repeats what he says about always thanking God for them because of their faith and love. Again these may be more of the standard type greeting, however, we can see that we also should be growing in our faith more and more. And that our love for others is ever increasing. What this speaks to is that we cannot and should not be stagnant, but must always be growing in our faith and increasing in our love for others. If we are not, then we are being like a sponge that just sits and soaks up, but is never squeezed out. After a while, we become pretty stinky, and mold sets in, and eventually, we will begin to rot away, and then we would be useless for anything good for the kingdom. In other words, we cannot be content with the amount of faith we have and the amount of love we have for each other. We cannot be comfortable in the place we are now. We need to believe Jesus for more than we currently do now. There is far more power living in Christ than we now avail ourselves of now. We need to ever be increasing in our faith, believing for more than we have ever believed for before. In addition, we have to increase our love for each other. We are not certain just how that is accomplished as if we love each other then we love each other. How do we increase that love? Again, it would seem right to refer to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians when he explains all the aspects of love. Are we paying attention to that? Are there certain aspects of love that we are missing? When we examine that explanation, we are sure we can increase our love, as well as we can grow in our faith.