“We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters,
and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all
of you have for one another is increasing.” – 2 Thessalonians 1:3 NIV
This kind of prayer is for every believer, not only for
missionaries and pastors. This is because love and faith are probably the best
combination for every believer, for the word of God declares:
Dear friends, let us love one
another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and
knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This
is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the
world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but
that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear
friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has
ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made
complete in us.
This is how we know that we live in
him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit… If anyone acknowledges that
Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and
rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love
lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so
that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like
Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear
has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
We love because he first loved us. Whoever
claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does
not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom
they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must
also love their brother and sister. (1
John 4:7-13,15-21)
‘Love the Lord your God with all
your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your
strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no
commandment greater than these. (Mark
12:30-31)
Let no debt remain outstanding,
except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has
fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You
shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever
other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your
neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the
fulfillment of the law. (Romans
13:8-10)
Without faith it is impossible to
please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and
that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. (Hebrews
11:6)
Therefore, since we have been
justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now
stand. (Romans
5:1-2)
Yet we know that a person is not
justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also
have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and
not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
(Galatians
2:16)
Second of all, when we look at Colossians
3:12-14: “Therefore, as God’s chosen
people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness,
humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another
if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.
And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in
perfect unity,” Colossians
3:14 connects the verses before with “and”
and states that we must put on love towards others to have perfect unity. This is
because the word of God states:
The human body has many parts, but
the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ. Some
of us are Jews, some are Gentiles, some are slaves, and some are free. But we
have all been baptized into one body by one Spirit, and we all share the same
Spirit. (1
Corinthians 12:12-13)
just as each of us has one body
with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in
Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the
others. (Romans
12:4-5)
Lastly, the Bible is the best method to increase our faith
in Christ, since it is the word of God.
All Scripture is God-breathed and
is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so
that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. For in
the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by
faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by
faith.” For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged
sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it
judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (2
Timothy 3:16-17, Romans 1:17, Hebrews 4:12)
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