Increasing and Abounding in Love

I love it when God opens my eyes to a particular verse and then continues to bring it to my attention day after day.  Through His Word God speaks.  The repetition provides confirmation of the particular area God is directing me to pray, and reveals how intentional God is to speak into my life.  It also prompts a response from me, for in His wisdom God knows exactly what I need even if I am unaware or clueless.  1 Thessalonians 3:12-13 says, "And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, ¹³ so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints."  What the LORD continue to impress upon me is my need to increase and abound in love to one another and to all.  God points out my faults and insufficiency so I will admit my need and seek Him as my sufficiency.

I am aware of my need to grow in love for God and others in a theoretical sense, but God wants me to accept this as His will for me right now.  The Bible confirms this is a process all believers should embrace according to His will.  God does not simply desire my love increase but to abound.  Instead of measuring out active love to a select few, I am called as a follower of Christ to seek Him that I might increase and abound in love to all!  Only through Christ can our love increase and abound.  Jesus said in John 10:10-11, "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. ¹¹ I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep."  Paul wrote in Romans 5:8, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  Though Jesus died on a cross and rose from the dead almost two thousand years ago, His demonstration of love remains in the present tense.  Our love for one another must also perpetually remain in the present tense through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The apostle Paul did not "attain" in this life.  His life after being born again was marked by his increasing and abundant love for God, fellow believers, and all people.  But while he remained in a body of flesh, the road of sanctification stretched out far before him.  If Paul needed this growth, how much more do I need to increase in love as well!  I do not want to be content only with a measurable increase of love demonstrated through my life, but a super-abundance of Christ's supernatural love.  This is not something I can do by my best efforts, but God delights to cause my love to increase and abound towards all.  He is able!  This is not a work He will do until I admit my great lack, confess my sin in repentance, and walk in obedience to Him by faith.  It is the LORD who will make me increase and abound in love, and I'm thankful He will do this so He might "establish my heart blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints."