Sunday, May 18, 2014

A Prosering Love (1 Thess. 3:12)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/18/2014 8:59 AM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus: A Prospering Love

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  1 Thessalonians 3:12

            Message of the verse:  “12  and may the Lord cause you to increase and abound in love for one another, and for all people, just as we also do for you;”

            Paul prayed for the Thessalonians that as the persecution came to them that they would continue to love one another and that meant not only their fellow believers, but also for those who were not believers.  When we go through difficult times we sometimes put up walls around us so that we will not let others in and will not love others who are going through difficult times too.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “Our growing faith in God ought to result in a growing love for others.  We are ‘taught of God to love one another’ (1 Thess. 4:9), and some of these lessons are best learned in the school of suffering.”  He next reminds us of the example that Joseph set when his brothers sold him and he ended up in Egypt where God took thirteen years to teach him how to lead a nation so that he could be used of God to save his family, a family that God would turn into a nation in the following four hundred years.  Joseph would learn to love and forgive his brothers for doing what they did to him.  This was taught to him by the Lord as he went through those thirteen years of difficulty and also when he learned that God was actually the One who sent him to Egypt in order to save his family.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes:  “What life does to us depends on what life finds in us; and nothing reveals the true inner man like the furnace of affliction.  Some people build walls in times of trial, and shut themselves off.  Others build bridges and draw closer to the Lord and His people.”

            As Paul prayed for these believers he desired to leave it to God to continue to develop these virtues in their lives.  Paul knew that it had to be the working of the Holy Spirit to accomplish this, and this is true with all things that we learn from the Lord.  We must remember that when we’re born we are born with an old nature that can do nothing to please the Lord.  Once the Lord saves us we are given a new nature that always wants to please the Lord, and therefore it is this new nature that is empowered by the Holy Spirit to accomplish the things that God has for us to accomplish for the cause of Christ. 

            John MacArthur writes “Paul asked first that their love would increase and abound..for one another, that is, within the church.  There are more than thirty positive and negative ‘one another’s’ in the New Testament, and love appears by for the most often.  Second, the apostle prayed that their love for all people would increase.  He wanted them to have a greater love for the lost and for those who persecuted them, as Jesus commanded His disciples, ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:44).”

            I have three missionaries that I pray for each day and one of them wrote that one of the Christians that live in the country where they minister had his orchard partly burned down by a man who said that he hated Christians.  God saved part of the orchard and my prayer is that this man will still be able to make a living with the remaining orchard that was spared.  I also pray that God will save this man who burned down his orchard, for we read of the Apostle Paul who also hated Christians, but God saved him, so He can save this man too.  I also pray that the man whose orchard was burned will forgive the man who did it, and thus show the love of God to him.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  It is easy to treat those who love us good, but God loves us even though we were His enemies and sent His Son to save us, so we should be able through His power to love believers and to love those who are not.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Help me to love all people with a love that God has loved me with.

Memory verse for the week:  Philippians 2:5-6

Have this attitude in yourself which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,

Answer to yesterday’s Bible question:  “Eleazar” (Numbers 20:25-28).

Is Ezekiel considered a major or minor prophet?”

Answer in our next SD.

5/18/2014 9:30 AM

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