To Encourage You

2 Thessalonians 1:3 “We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because . . . the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.”

What an incredible statement the verse above makes about the particular group of people that comprised the first-century Thessalonian church.  It’s a comprehensive statement about every single person that was a part of it.  So, what was true of every person in that body of believers?  They, without exception, loved everyone else in that body of believers.  In a world where it seems that not even husbands and wives love each other very well (note the high divorce rates today) here was a group of people that, to a person, not only loved each other, but the love that they had for each other just kept increasing.  Paul thanks God for this wonderful trait, and with that thanksgiving lets us all in on a wonderful possibility – that a group of people, specifically a body of believers in a local church, can have these kinds of relationships with one another.  It’s an example being held up for us.  It’s something that we should desire for our churches.  In fact, it’s what should mark every God-honoring church. 

You see, a church is supposed to be made up of Christians – real Christians that have been born again by the Spirit of God – for it is only when a church is made up of people whose lives have actually been transformed by the power of God that the love described in the Thessalonian church will ever be possible.  The Bible talks about two possible conditions that will describe every person on the face of the earth.  A person is either being “led by the Spirit” or they are not. There are only two options.

As Galatians 5 tells us, those who are not led by the Spirit live primarily for the purpose of gratifying the sinful desires of their natural human condition.  It’s called “gratifying the desires of the flesh” in biblical language.  And what does that look like? We are told in Galatians 5:18 that “the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries,dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.” Many of these “works” play themselves out in harmful relationships between people.  They are the result of self-centered people vying for the preeminence in one way or another.  And when such “works” are present in those relationships, then love, i.e., the self-sacrificial service-like agape love (which is the Greek term for the specific type of love used in the verse above) will never be possible.  For a non-Christian, the works of the flesh dominate life, for the Holy Spirit is absent and doesn’t dwell within them. 

However, for believers, it is possible to “walk by the spirit” rather than “walk by the flesh.”  Paul describes the Spirit-led walk in Galatians 5 as a life filled with the “fruit of the Spirit.”   He goes on then to describe this fruit in the following way: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, (and) self-control.”  Notice how just as the works of the flesh play themselves out in defective relationships between people, the fruit of the Spirit is a description of the wonderful and healthy relationships that are God’s will for people – and the very first of these is love, that wonderful characteristic of the Thessalonian believers. 

You see, a true Christian loves Jesus Christ.  And if that love is genuine, it will be reflected in the same type of love being expressed towards others.  Jesus said as much with the following words to His disciples: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).  That’s the change that is possible when a person enters the true Church of God by being born of the Spirit. It’s the kind of love I personally witnessed on a trip to Israel in the early 1990’s. There I witnessed something that you would be hard pressed to find anywhere else – Jewish and Palestinian Christians worshipping together in love in the same building.  There I witnessed the truth described by Paul, that when one becomes a believer in Jesus Christ, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).  And that’s what the true church is. That’s what true believers are – or at least should be if they are truly walking by the Spirit in contrast to walking in the flesh.

The things that tend to divide people – things like nationalities, social status, or gender – should be supplanted by a love for Christ that is demonstrated by true believers in a love for one another, regardless of who they are.  That’s exactly what the church should be – and that’s exactly what God would have it be. 

May God bless our churches today with the love that was shown in the first-century Thessalonian church. And may the Lord “add to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47).