The Gift of Overflowing Love
The Gift of Overflowing Love
Reflection on 1 Thessalonians 3:12 — 11/14/2023
May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. — 1 Thessalonians 3:12
Mediocre love is the reason for many unanswered prayers. Not because God doesn’t hear and respond, but because the vessels chosen as his means of answer have a kind of polite love that will not inconvenience itself to be moved sacrificially.
On the contrary, many missionaries testified to have been praying for something: financial support, medicine, intervention, etc, when all of a sudden the prayer is answered and accompanied by a note that says something like, “the Lord placed you on my heart, so I wanted to send you this ________.” Their love was one that could be inconvenienced for the sake of others and the glory of God.
In Paul’s letter to the church in Thessalonica, he recognized the need for them to have a love that “increases and overflows.” This kind of love would enable them to go beyond what is polite and acceptable, towards what is sacrificial, and in pursuit of bringing about that which is good for another.
This is the kind of love that urged Jesus to the cross. It is the kind of love that Jesus said would make his disciples stand out as belonging to him (John 13:35). And it’s also the same love that has “been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). Therefore, it is possible for us to have a love that overflows for God and others.
In recognition of this I have been praying this prayer:
Heavenly Father, I thank you for the love that you’ve revealed to us in Jesus Christ. This love has also been sown within us by your Spirit. Grant that we might be sensitive to the opportunities to abound in love. Move our hearts, especially when fear is present, to trust that acting in faithful love is always acting in harmony with you. Make you church filled with those whose hearts are increasing and overflowing, that we might be your answers to others prayers. In Jesus name. Amen.