1 Thessalonians 3

1 Thessalonians 3:12-13

Paul asks God a great request for us in the end of chapter 3 when he says, "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." (ESV)

Paul is such a great writer. He completely describes what God wants for us to do throughout this earth in two verses. He is praying that God will fill us with such love for each other as the body of Christ. That's the first thing that is mentioned. We need to be loving of all believers: male, female, tall, short, young, old. We are united under Christ and therefore we are called to love each other. "And for all", we also need to love those who are outside the body. Those who are unsaved, those who are living in the darkness. We need to be the light in their lives and show them the same unconditional love that God has shown us through Christ. No matter who they are or what they've done, we need to love them abundantly. Love is the most powerful strategy God has given us, it's time we use it on everyone. "So that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness". The more we love and the more we live by love, the easier it will be for God to establish us. He will declare us blameless. It makes perfect sense too, if we love everyone on this earth and live by what Christ stood for, then what does anyone have against us? They can't call us out on anything because all we've done is love everyone. We will be titled blameless and holy by God in the time that Christ comes back to earth with all of the citizens of Heaven. Can you imagine that? Christ comes down to this earth and has angels and saints and animals and prophets with Him, and He looks at us and awaits fort God to speak, and then God says, "This child has been blameless on earth." What? God wants to declare us blameless, and we do that by loving all.

I feel like the challenge here is obvious: love. Love. That's it. We are called to love everyone here at all times, and that won't be easy no doubt. But, if we live by Christ and live with constant prayer and peace with God, loving the unlovable and loving our brothers and sisters in Christ will be accomplished. Only through God can we love everyone, for God is love. The more we pray for the ability to love everyone, the more opportunities will come for us to love people and share Christ's compassion with others. This can and will change the world guys, let's start loving the unlovable.